


Kitten and Tiger

by ScooterSister



Category: Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Abandonment, Angst and Humor, Assassins & Hitmen, Daddy Issues, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Feels, Forbidden Love, Friendship, Kidnapping, Multi, Orphans, Other, Trust Issues, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-22 11:35:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 46,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2506343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScooterSister/pseuds/ScooterSister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A woman, trying to get away from her past, runs to Sandy Shores for anonymity. While she tries to figure out if she's half-crazy or just a survivor, Trevor Philips gets added to the mix and the result is incendiary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kitten Meets Tiger

“Why! Why did she have to die,” Old Smoky said before collapsing back into a bout of sobs.

“Patsy Cline?” asked Meadow.

“Patsy,” lamented the old man in hiccupy-sobs.

Meadow stirred on her bar stool uncomfortably before answering, tentatively “Because she was a popular musician that boarded a Beechcraft in the middle of the century?”

Old Smoky looked up at her with wet, saucer eyes and a trembling lip. “You speak the truth, young lady,” he said quietly, deflated at Meadow's observation.

Meadow felt responsible for the old man that smelled of wood smoke's very sudden, very public emotional out pour. She had been ignoring him when he put the change in the jukebox of the little dive where she stopped to get out of the rain, and she had been ignoring herself when she absently started crooning the lyrics to the late, great Patsy Cline's rendition of “You Belong To Me” while she combed her gas station maps trying to orient herself to the desert where she was meant to be hanging her hat, indefinitely. She had stopped singing when she realized that she was making the old man cry but had reluctantly kept going, less enthusiastically, when he beckoned her to do so. That is, up until he began openly lamenting the singer whose voice now hovered over them, solitary, like an agonizing ether.

Meadow saw a figure at the end of the bar move and looked up to see a tall man with thinning hair in a white t-shirt and jeans, covered in outlandish tattoos and wearing what looked like fortyish years of a hard knock life on his face. He was approaching herself and Old Smoky at their place at the bar.

“Naw, old man, she doesn't, she doesn't speak the truth,” the tall, tattooed man said with a vaguely threatening venom in his voice. He continued, “No, see, if she was speaking the truth, she would have stated correctly that Patsy met her untimely demise on a Piper PA-24 Commanche, not a Beechcraft. So, ignore this misinformed ingenue and go back to crying into your beer, old top.”

“You leave her be,” replied Smoky through bitter tears.

The man sneered at Smoky, knowing full well that the old man could do very little to defend Meadow's honor, as it were. Smoky quickly ceded the point in response and continued to cry into his beer, as instructed. Meadow, for her part, remained quite calm throughout the exchange, and was maybe even a little bit amused by her first taste of the local flavor since setting foot in this town.

“So, Kitten. You don't quite fit in in this sea of sad, old, pining,” he raised his voice slightly and directed that last adjective at Smoky, who waved his hand in dismissal “drunks in the middle of the desert, now do you?”

Meadow was more than a little bit road-weary and it might have been for this reason that her judgment was failing so miserably. Part of her knew that she was a stranger in a strange land and that she should do her best to coddle the sensibilities of the locals until such a time as they would live and let live. But she just really,  _really_ didn't fucking have it in her to play nice with this weirdo who didn't have the common courtesy to let her finish her drink before starting in on her. She looked up at this threatening man with faux-innocence through her glasses and replied “Well, I just wandered in here off the highway, so that remains to be seen, but, uh...seeing as how your welcome wagon has such an impressive response time, I'd say it's looking pretty good for me, _Tiger_.”  
Threatening Man's mouth curled into a wry smile.

“That's where you'd be wrong, kitten.” He cocked his body toward the young woman, who might has well have been two inches tall next to him, and puffed out his chest ever so slightly, staring down his nose at her. Meadow responded in kind by swiveling her bar stool to square her body with his and continued to stare right into his face as he spoke in a hushed tone. “See, you might have wandered in here thinking that this was a town full of hicks from the sticks that spend their days reminiscing about their youth and having the same arguments over and over again, but this town? It's fucking poison on a map and you've got to be ready to step to anyone who threatens your survival. So, that said, I couldn't help but notice your glasses. Are you some kind of hipster that came out here to be ironic?”

Meadow cringed inwardly at that accusation due in large part to he fact that she would have made the same assumption. Even so, that thought didn't lend itself to her ability to empathize with this creature. She blinked up at him and answered “Yes. I was really hoping that you wouldn't notice, but I am some kind of hipster and I have come from the big city with my seventy thousand dollar liberal arts degree to gentrify your sandbox.” She was fucking _on._ And this wasn't really typical of her either. She wasn't exactly a pushover, but she fancied herself a pretty mild person for the most part. Maybe even a little fragile. It was only when she was feeling trapped that she became difficult.

Threatening Man seemed a bit taken aback by the fact that the young woman before him had not yet retreated in the face of what seemed to have become an all-out assault on her very presence in this bar. He eyed her closely.

“And what if I like my sandbox the way it is, Kitten? Huh? What then?” He inched closer to Meadow's face as he said this, nearly meeting her eye-level.

Meadow called his bluff and inched closer to his face and said “Then, I guess you'll have to try and stop me, Tiger.”

“You've got a mouth on you haven't you, Kitten” said Threatening Man.

“You have no idea, Tiger,” responded Meadow, fully aware of what kind of response it would invite. And this tiger didn't disappoint.

“I might like to get an idea. Say, why don't you and I go into that old phone booth back there and you can-”

“Trevor!” cried a female voice. It was the bartender and, presumably, the owner of the establishment. “You let that girl alone. You are on thin ice with me and she's a paying customer and you are not going to scare off another one of those monied city kids. You are threatening my livelihood, you sonofabitch!”

Trevor looked down at Meadow before responding “You're in luck, Janet. This one doesn't scare easy.” He looked Meadow up and down before fixing his gaze on her breasts. The rain had moistened her t-shirt and the outdated air conditioner in the bar was working well enough for her nipples to stand at attention. Still, this...Trevor was right. Meadow wasn't going to be a shrinking violet, not today at least, and she made no effort to cover herself up under the lecherous man's gaze. Besides, she had soured on dudes over the past year, well before it was age-appropriate, and she looked upon her tits as one of her last vestiges of male-torment.

“I hope this isn't the last I see of you, Kitten,” Trevor said in a suddenly velvety voice.

“Oh, not at all, Tiger. I love our talks,” replied Meadow.

Trevor gave Meadow one more libidinous gaze while walking backwards toward the door before turning on his heel and disappearing. Meadow snorted at the odd encounter before wondering suddenly if she had just fucked up her new start and put herself onto the wrong guy's radar. She sighed and took another sip of the swill before her and decided to brush that thought away. She wasn't going to spend her first hours in Sandy Shores analyzing herself. She had settling to do.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ron struggled to steady himself on a small landscaping rock to maintain his vantage into the kitchen-slash-dining area of the small, raised, stucco house kitty corner from his trailer. He bit his lip, struggling to remain silent so as not to spook the new neighbor whom he was charged with gathering intel on by his employer-slash-only-friend. He had to admit, this method was more than a little disturbing, even to himself who had grown accustomed to less-than-ethical approaches to doing business. But the last tenant of the little stucco house had threatened to cause major problems for them. They had caught him spying more than once and Ron had reason to suspect that he was fixing to call law enforcement. Simply put, the last tenant had been a liability up until he was run out of town with two broken hands and the Trevor Philips guarantee of permanent silence.  
In his nervous state, Ron couldn't help but wince when the young woman appeared from what he guessed was her bathroom, appearing freshly showered, wearing only a baggy muscle shirt and underwear that Ron noticed were emblazoned with the Princess Robot Bubblegum character logo. He inwardly scolded himself for looking so closely and felt greatly relieved when she pulled on a pair of sweatpants that were laying in the middle of her living room floor.

Ron teetered on his makeshift step stool, watching as the young woman turned on a small radio on her kitchen island and then set about cleaning a handgun. While she did this, she danced sedately, mouthing along and eating an apple, stopping only to push her cat-eye glasses up the bridge of her nose. Ron began to grow increasingly uncomfortable with this voyeurism. While she wasn't doing anything terribly embarrassing, the fact that she thought that she was alone made him feel...well, how women generally perceived him. Weird and desperate and creepy.

A few minutes passed before the young woman, eyes fixed on the gun she was cleaning, suddenly reached over and turned the radio down. Only then did she move her eyes about purposefully and pursed her lips in concentration as if listening for a distant noise. Ron quickly realized that he might be caught by an armed woman.

The young woman continued to listen for inaudible noises for what seemed like forever to Ron before turning her attention to the coat that was hanging off the back of the bar stool at which she was seated. She fished around in the pocket, pulling out a phone. She was going to call the cops. _Run! Run away!_ His brain screamed at him to act but he found himself paralyzed.

The woman lifted the phone to her ear. “Next Level Comics, this is Margaret,” she said in a nasally, nerd-like cadence. The noise that Ron couldn't hear had been her mobile phone vibrating in her coat pocket.

“It's me,” came a male voice from the other end. She had it on speaker. Ron breathed a baby sigh of relief.

“Hi, Badger,” she said in a sweet, sing-song voice.

“Your covers are getting increasingly ridiculous,” replied the male voice at the other end.

“You're the one who told me to never answer the phone in my own voice.”

“So, you arrived safe and sound?”

“Why yes, I did. And I'm in the house, and I just had a shower and now I'm cleaning Steely Justice. It's like I never left the city.”

“Mmm...Good. It sounds like you're in good spirits, too.”

“Well, yes, Badger, but that's only because you called.”

“Yeah, yeah, enough with the games, Meadow. We need to talk logistics.”

The girl's back straightened and her eyes narrowed at this. “You used my name just now. On the phone, Badger.”

“Shit! I'm sorry. That was careless. Uh, anyway, I'm going to continue to bounce money around the three key financial institutions that we spoke about and the safest way for you to access the funds at this point is by withdrawing them directly. It's going to be a lot of driving for you, but only take out small amounts so as not to rouse any suspicions.”

“Copy that.” She relaxed her shoulders and went back to cleaning the gun known affectionately to her as _Steely Justice_.

“I'll find another back door for you to access them electronically, but it's going to take some maneuvering and since you let on that the people that you left the city to avoid have resources to track these kinds of things, I think that it's best to do it the analog way in the interim. You can never be too careful.”

Ron continued to balance himself on the rock, shakily, steadying himself against the stucco house as best as he could, without making a peep. His racing thoughts made it difficult for him to process the vague information that he was gathering and he struggled to push past his anxiety at the prospect of getting caught to catalog every detail of what seemed to be an intriguing conversation. Still, he thought, this was Sandy Shores, after all. You didn't land yourself in Sandy Shores for being an angel. What if this woman was just another face in a sea of people running from their demons? Did it really make a difference that someone like her was in such close proximity to their base of operations?

“10-4, little buddy.”

“I trust that you're happy with your abode?”

“It's a cute little roach house. I don't know about his town, though, Chief. It's a little...”

“Backwards?”

“That's the understatement of the century. I mean, it has its charms, but it's basically the Australia of the state, no?” Ron took notice of how the young woman's observation mirrored his own thoughts, which only fueled his growing paranoia. Could she read his mind from where she sat, he wondered?

“That's the point, really. If you misbehave, nobody will get their hackles up.”

“Misbehave?” The young woman guffawed at this. “What in the hell is that supposed to mean? Like I just can't _help_ myself? Like I'm incorrigible? Like I'm some kind of derelict criminal piece of shit?”

“Cool your jets, missy. You didn't want to tell me what spooked you so bad that you felt you needed to flee, so I can only assume that your...gifts...er...proclivities got you into this in the first place.”

“I'll cop to that, more or less. My gifts helped land me in this situation, but we're not talking about some disgruntled family member or gangbanger that I slighted. We're talking well-connected, powerful motherfuckers that are going to be royally pissed when they figure out that I'm missing, okay? The less you know, the better. Can we change the subject, please?”

“I figured you would say that. You're not even creative in skirting the issue anymore.”

The young woman cocked her head.

“Say, Badger. Speaking of misbehaving, I'm already a might lonely out here in the boonies, and I was thinking that we should have phone sex.” Ron gulped.

“Christ, woman. You can't take anything seriously, can you?”

“I take the phone nookie very seriously. It's a dead art. It's the Latin of simulated sex. But if you're not into it, you could always hop on a bus and I could do that weird thing that you accidentally told me you liked when you were inebriated? Remember? The thing with the ice cubes?”

“You're making it easy not to miss you.”

She paused for a moment before speaking again, having dropped the plucky, sarcastic tone. She stopped cleaning Steely Justice.

“Hey...”

“Hey, what?”

“Thank you for everything. I mean it. You stuck your neck out really far and I won't soon forget that, Badger. I don't know what I would have done if I didn't have you. And I do miss you.” She smiled kindly.

“Agh...Don't mention it,” replied the voice at the other end, obviously uncomfortable with the sudden sentimentality. “Look, there might be a way to get you back into the city safely at some point, but in order to do that, you're going to have to give me a little more information. In the meantime, keep your nose clean, bunny rabbit.”

“I hear you loud and clear, Badger. Bunny rabbit out!”

She hung up the phone and leaned on her elbows and looked off at nothing, her smile slowly fading with the passing moments, her face betraying the genuine loneliness that she had expressed sarcastically a moment earlier. She sighed. Ron watched her and waited for her to exit the room so that he could make a clean escape. When she was done contemplating whatever it was that was weighing on her mind, she picked up the core from the apple that she had been eating and started toward the window. Ron, startled, crouched down, nearly losing his footing in the process. He almost shit a brick when he looked up to see that she was leaning her upper-body out of the window, apple core in hand. She flung the thing toward a compost bin sitting in the corner of the yard, making the shot. “Nothing but net!” she cried triumphantly, to no one but herself. She went back in and Ron saw the kitchen lights go off. He waited barely ten seconds before skittering off to his side of the road.


	2. The Skinny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ron gives Trevor the LD on the new neighbor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own any characters except for Meadow Magnussen

“So, Ron. What did you find out about the guy living across the way? Do you think he's going to be a liability or can we leave good enough alone? I've got bigger concerns, I don't need some stoolie peeping tom breathing down my neck.”

Ron rocked nervously on his feet in the small trailer while his boss-friend leaned against the fridge, guzzling a beer.

“Uh, well, as it happens, Trevor, it's not a guy...Uh, it's a, it's a woman,” Ron stammered.

“Agh!” Trevor exclaimed tersely, moving over to the couch to sit. “Some middle-aged divorcee with twenty cats? I know the type. They could draw their own district lines in Blaine County if they organized. God bless 'em.”

“No, no, not exactly.” Ron fidgeted with his hands. “She's a young woman, couldn't tell you how young, really, it's anyone's guess, but I suspect she couldn't be more than...twenty-something?”

Trevor cocked an eyebrow at this and rose to his feet. He looked puzzled.

“What's wrong with her? Does she have a horrible facial deformity or a club foot? Is she missing her tongue?”

“No, no, no, nothing like that...She looks perfectly...er...able-bodied,” Ron caught the unintentionally creepy inflection at that last phrase at the same time Trevor did. Trevor slapped him on the back.

“Ron! You dog! You're back!”

“I didn't mean-”

“Give it up, Ron. You're smitten, aren't ya!” Trevor cackled.

Ron felt a bit insulted and even a bit of anger boiling deep beneath the surface. He had no unseemly intentions toward the young woman that had been his project a night prior. Certainly, he could recognize that the young woman had the appeal of, well, any other woman, young or old, but people didn't give him enough credit. He wasn't some lech. He was perfectly content in his own, er, company and had grown cozy with the idea that that's how he would live out the rest of his days. He was terrified of women, especially after getting burned in his divorce, and he was fine with it. And now? He was just a spineless errand boy. He quickly put down the hurt and anger that nagged him. Trevor narrowed his eyes in that all-to-familiar way that he did when his imagination got going.

“She, uh...She cute, Ron?”

Ron twitched at the question. “She's...I don't know, sure, kind of, I 'spose. She's clean?” Ron shook his head rapidly as if to shake the image of the woman out of his mind. “Women that age don't really register for me, Trevor, I'm a middle-aged man, but...Look, it sounds like she's on the lam. I don't know what for, but I overheard a conversation between herself and an associate last night. I didn't get a lot of details, but it sounds like she's from L.S., possibly, and she came here to lay low,” Ron stated.

“This is a good place to do it,” Trevor said. “Just about everyone that sets foot in this town for more than a few nights is running from something...Still, though, we can't be too careful. We need to keep an eye on her, ya know, just in case.”

“I'm not comfortable peeping in her window anymore, Trevor. It's not right,” Ron said.

“I'm not telling you to peep on her, Ron,” Trevor shrugged. “Just use your equipment to monitor her telephone conversations, keep meticulous notes on her comings and goings, and tail her sometimes. Nothing too obtrusive.”

“Tail her?”

“Yes.”

Ron sighed. He shouldn't have mentioned the intriguing telephone conversation to Trevor.

“I'll see what I can do.”

“Good! In the meantime, I've got some Mexican gang members to jam up while they try to run illegal firearms through my home town without my blessing.”

Trevor threw his beer bottle into the sink before striding out of the trailer and taking off in his Bodhi, leaving Ron to stand their shaking his head at the unpleasant position that he had landed himself in, all because of his lack of guile and his undying loyalty to a psychopath.


	3. Buzzards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own any of the characters except for Meadow Magnussen

Trevor was coming off of a celebratory bender having once again successfully put down the arms-running by the Mexicans with a few strategic acts of violence. He woke up that morning in an ant hill off of a trail in what he eventually realized was Senora National Park, once his head quit spinning. He gave some thought to carjacking someone but decided that a morning stroll home would help him walk off the hangover that was threatening to rear it's head. It wouldn't be the first, but the sun was especially high this morning and the sunglasses that he had somehow procured, probably through nefarious means, did little to stave off the sun's assault. He didn't bother to stay on the roads, instead cutting across fields of sagebrush and cacti. All told, the walk back into town took about 45 minutes. His first stop once back in Sandy Shores was the liquor store for the hair of the dog, though the walk had, as predicted, quelled the discomfort quite a bit. He headed for his trailer, an open beer in one hand, the remaining five, still on the rings dangling from the other.

Trevor took in Sandy Shores, the place he called home as he walked, the desolate beauty of it all: Old, tarnished signs of businesses that had long ago been chased out of town, broken cars, dilapidated old gas stations, rodent carcasses that had been picked clean by birds of prey. He looked into the early morning sky and saw some buzzards circling something. _Fuck it_ he thought. He looked upon buzzards as sentinels that always knew something sweet when they circled it and once in a while, he garnered inspiration from the big, tenacious bastards. A sort of superstition of his, he supposed. He was mighty close to his own home, anyway.

He eyed the birds and locked in on the area where they were circling, above the raised stucco house where that fucking stool-pigeon, rat-faced fuck had once called home before Trevor chased him off with the help of a claw hammer and a few choice words. _Did that twenty-something Ron was stammering about buy the farm already_ , he thought. He walked toward the house. _Au contraire_.

There was indeed a warm body in a half-busted lawn chair in that sorry excuse for a yard. Trevor approached. First he saw a pair of bare legs, then a torso, a pair of arms holding a book, and finally a mess of dirty-blonde hair piled on top of a head. The face was buried in the book.  
He hesitated for a moment. He had, after all, instructed Ron to watch her movements. He didn't want to make her aware of it. The young woman repositioned herself in the lawn chair. _Aw, screw it. The buzzards must have led me here for some reason_. This way he could decide if he even needed to _bother_ watching her movements, intriguing little minx that she was.

“Well, _hello_ there,” he purred at the young woman, the ghosts of countless whiskey shots still dancing on his tongue.

She looked up at him, a pair of aviator shades hiding her eyes. “Hi,” she said, sounding a bit unsettled. He had disturbed her. She put the book in her lap and eyed him nervously.

“I was just out for my...morning stroll, and I noticed that you and I had not yet been acquainted.” _Or knocked boots,_ he thought.

The young woman cocked her head at the disheveled man that stood at her fence. “Oh, yes we have,” she said. She stood up, pulled at the legs of her denim cut-offs, and approached the fence. Trevor looked her up and down. He couldn't remember paying for her company and, quite frankly, she lacked the telltale scabs and bruises of the working ladies of Blaine County. Certainly, she wouldn't be so ballsy as to approach him if she had been one of the bystanders at a bank job or a victim of one of his carjackings. Who in the hell was she? She removed her sunglasses and looked up at him, right in his eyes, right into him, it seemed. The sun shone into her eyes, making them glow, her skin awash with the morning light, but she didn't seem bothered by having the sun in her face.

“We met at the Yellow Jack Inn not two weeks ago, remember?”

Trevor searched his mind. He could usually be found skulking around that hole in the wall and there were more than a few times that his memory stopped there, but surely he hadn't blacked out there in the last two weeks. He'd been there just the other day and Janet didn't raise a stink about it. What was this girl playing at? Was she fucking with him or was it a case of mistaken identity?

“I'm sorry, I... I don't remember,” Trevor said. “Refresh my memory?”

The young woman rested her elbows on the fence, leaned forward and said, in a playful voice “Meow.”

It took only a moment to register and when it did, Trevor guffawed. Of course. _How could he have forgotten?  
_

She had indeed been at the Yellow Jack Inn that fateful evening that he had massacred a swath of Aztecas that had clandestinely met with a small constituency of arms runners under the cover of night. He decided to have a night-cap to cool down after that little exercise. While he was seated at the bar he had seen the girl come in, her leather jacket and her hair soaked from the veritable monsoon outside, her cat-eye glasses fogged. He was knackered from the day's events and didn't give her a second thought until she'd started singing along with the jukebox, obviously in the absence of any kind of self-consciousness. Anyone could have seen how vacant she was, sitting there in that bar as though she had been sitting in her own living room. Quite the little dingbat. And in her ignorance, she had to go and get that old bastard riled up, crying and carrying on. She had disrupted his hard-won fuckin' peace and the final straw came after she advertised her absolute ignorance about small aircraft. That miffed him. And now here she was in the daylight, songless, staring up at him, trying to draw the recognition out of him with her big, round eyes.

“ _Kitten_ ,” he purred. “I didn't recognize you. You look different without glasses. As I recall, you were wearing glasses that night, yes?” He took a sip of his beer and peered into her baby face, covered in freckles and tinged with a vague mix of mischief and innocence.

“I was wet, too.” Trevor swallowed his beer, though it took some effort not to choke on it. She continued “Because it was raining. Hard.” He sighed, a sigh to regain his composure that had begun to shake free of him at this early hour, in this strange girl's company. He hadn't had a woman lay it on this thick in years, not even the ones he'd paid for. He was used to taking the lead on that. Unless she really was that oblivious and couldn't help but speak in innuendo. She blinked up at him, straight-mouthed before looking away. “I look different when I'm wet,” she shrugged. Trevor looked down at his work boots.

“As I recall, Kitten, I wasn't exactly a gentleman that night,” Trevor said. He shifted his gaze upward, struggling to meet her gaze.

“No,” she deadpanned. “You were kind of a nasty prick.” She had this look on her face, like she was worried at what he would say or do in response.

“Well, I suppose I owe you an apology. Trust me, I'm...Paying for it now,” he said, motioning with his arms, trying not to spill his beer. He was beginning to sober up. The young woman looked continued to stare at him with that worried expression.

“It's not that big a deal," she said after a tense moment of silence. "I bet you didn't think you were going to run into me again." Her expression seemed to ease a bit. She wasn't wrong. He'd pegged her as just some L.S. party girl looking to have a good time in the seedy bars of Blaine County over a long weekend. He decided to change the subject.

“You know, the buzzards are circling over your house,” he said, motioning to the sky. The young woman looked up.

“Oh, yeah,” she replied, showing no concern.

“There might be something dead in your yard or under your house.”

The young woman pondered this for a second, still looking skyward. “They probably want what's in the compost bin. It's getting pretty ripe in there with all this heat.”

Trevor didn't know how to proceed from here. She'd effectively harpooned his talking point. Normally, he would have propositioned her or something, made her squirm a little, but it just didn't seem right under the circumstances, for some reason. He looked down at his boots for an answer.

“You want a beer,” he asked, holding up the plastic yoke that held the five remaining cans. Meadow shifted her gaze to the beers without turning her head.

“It's 8:30 in the morning,” she said.

Trevor narrowed his eyes, sensing judgment. “Well, Kitten, maybe reading a book in a lawn chair at 8:30 in the morning is a bit suspect, too,” Trevor hissed back. The young woman studied his face, showing no sign of regret before smiling warmly at him. The smile disarmed him. She let her gaze move up and down the length of him.

“Yeah, I guess it is a little weird,” she said with a small laugh.

Trevor didn't know if it was the looming hangover or his encounter with this...woman that had left him feeling discombobulated, but he felt the need to leave before he couldn't recognize himself anymore, before the remainder of his personality was siphoned out of him by the girl.

“I should be going. I have a hangover to sleep off and you have a book to read,” said Trevor.

The girl looked a bit alarmed at this. That vaguely worried expression returned. “Don't be a stranger,” the young woman said.

“I didn't catch your name,” Trevor said.

“If I tell you, will I stop being Kitten,” she asked, sounding perfectly sincere.

“I don't imagine so. You earned that nickname for a reason.”

“It's Meadow,” said the young woman. “My given name is Meadow,” she said quietly, maybe with a hint of reluctance.

“Meadow, it's been a pleasure. I'm Trevor Philips.”

“'Til next time, Trevor,” Meadow practically whispered before turning and walking back to her chair. Her demeanor was once again completely unreadable.

Trevor began the short walk home.

What the hell was with this chick? She comes into his town, his place of business and starts fucking with his head? Did she know just who in the hell she was dealing with? Most women her age wanted the crawl out of their own skin if he so much as glanced their way, but her? She played with him like he was her ball of yarn. It almost seemed to him that she couldn't help but play with fire, like a little kid that hadn't grasped the concept of temperature. Like a teenager that had only just discovered how to be wily and didn't know how to handle that kind of power yet. Maybe she was tragically impulsive. Maybe that took her down a peg. If she couldn't control herself, that gave people that would have her hurt a pretty serious advantage. But, unfortunately for her, there remained the possibility that she was up to something. The surveillance of the new inhabitant of the stucco house would proceed as planned, he decided.

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Meadow's heart had barely stopped galloping in her chest even after a cool shower, a tall glass of water, and a hearty breakfast by the time noon rolled around. Her electrolytes and nutrients must be fucked, she decided. Her early morning encounter with Trevor Philips had left her head swimming. She had no idea that she had been living in such close proximity to a reputed psychopath. Not only that but she had baited him the same way that she had at the Inn some weeks ago. Back then, it was fun, maybe a little show of one upsmanship, but to do it mere feet from where she slept was just reckless. She had promised herself that she wasn't going to touch off her new start by stoking fires she couldn't extinguish but hell, this seemed to be her wont these days. Her problem was that every time she got a little bit scared, instead of retreating, she would meet it full boar. She just leaned into these things these days in what she supposed was a subconscious effort to beat all her fears. But it always got her in trouble and, unfortunately, the approach had become a reflex. She had really lost it back in L.S. and she hadn't gotten out a minute too soon, it seemed.

Meadow gathered some belongings for a trip to Paleto Bay to make her first withdrawal since moving here. She needed cash and she needed to clear her head. She got into her car and headed out of town onto I-13. She turned on the radio, trying to tune out the compulsion to itemize everyone of her life decisions to figure out why she had behaved so with Trevor, how she could avoid encounters like it in the future. Her time in the military had furnished her with some much-needed discipline toward the end of adolescence. Getting thrown out  _through no fault of her own_ had reignited the rebelliousness and tumult of her youth. And now it was in hyper-drive. Getting involved with Badger, using the skills that she got in training to carry out nefarious business at his behest. And then getting wrangled into the FIB's Division of Unscrupulous Corruption because she had been too damn sloppy and she hadn't covered her tracks adequately. She used to be a nice girl. Yes, a nice girl who questioned her leaders and was highly cynical about certain things, but nice nonetheless. Her life over the past two years had been one long tailspin. Toward what, though? She hadn't gotten blown up yet.

And this thing with Trevor Philips...She'd had two brief encounters with him and he was already the spector tormenting her thoughts. Who the fuck was he? Was he just some creepy old dude who'd seen better days or was there something else there? Should she be afraid of him? Her powers of discernment had faltered. _Don't be a stranger_ , she had told him. What a moron. The only way she could have made the situation worse was by giving him a dossier of information on herself.

Trevor had something about him that Meadow was simultaneously drawn to and repulsed by. Yes, he was sinister, distilled dread, even. Maybe it was that voice, Meadow thought. She was a sucker for a good, sultry voice and his was dripping with sex and anger, two of Meadow's greatest weaknesses. Then again, he seemed to be a drunk. Meadow had had her share of fun with the day drinking but, you know, first impressions and everything. And Sandy Shores was crawling with the worst of the worst, and she'd caught whispers of Trevor's shenanigans in the gas station and the bar, and dude had a reputation, even _among_ _the worst_. So, where did that leave her?

Meadow's thoughts raced for some time, oscillating between the analytic and the hysterical. She was nearing her destination and could hardly wait to be face to face with some bank teller, all Pan-American smiles and warmth, if only to escape her own obsessive thoughts. She had moments like this a lot of the time. One minute, she was cool as cool could be and the next she was at war with her mind, trying to wrestle down the most heinous scenarios imaginable. But Mr. Philips had ignited something especially distressing in her.

She wanted to call Badger, to tell him that he was right, she was misbehaving and she couldn't help herself. To train a missile on her and put her out of her misery, STAT. But she knew that in this, she was truly helpless. She was damned if she hung around Sandy Shores and damned if she didn't. Badger would have told her as much himself.


	4. Hyper-Real

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains some pretty explicit violence.

Trevor paced the length of the crinkling, water-stained laminate floor of his trailer's kitchen area, a low growl emanating from his throat. “Because, Ronald, there is something _off_ about her. She's _funny_. She's not just a part of the hipster diaspora that trekked down here from Los Santos to get lit on daddy's dime. She's hiding something and she lives two fucking skips from this fucking trailer,” Trevor roared. He really hated when Ron had the _gall_ , no the utter _stupidity_ to question Trevor's methods.

Ron, for his part, cowered near the door, ready to make a run for it should Trevor see fit to advance upon him for his hubris. “I'm sorry, Trevor, it's just that...I did what you said. I've followed her for nearly a week, I've listened to her phone conversations. All's she's done is go to the bank in Paleto and to the grocery store a couple of times. She went to the San Chianski one day, but I followed her and all she did was hike. The only calls she's made have been to the Los Santos Rock Radio request line. She seems to be living a pretty quiet life over there,” Ron pleaded. “If I get any closer, she'll notice and it'll spook her. Besides, if you're so worried about it, I don't see why you don't just run her out of town like you did the last guy.”

Trevor winced at this and stopped pacing. Ron saw and hunched his right shoulder reflexively to block an assault. Trevor spoke more softly now. “Ron...Buddy.” Trevor swaggered slowly toward Ron. He placed his hands gently onto Ron's shoulders. “Listen. If she was just about anyone else, I would have no qualms about breaking her fingers and chasing her into a ravine. But she's...A _she_. I do not hate women. Plus, for all I know, she's running away from some asshole that got his jollies beating on her and I don't want to be the one to re-traumatize a woman who could be a battered wife. But until I know for certain, as far as I'm concerned she still deserves our intense scrutiny. At least until I can rest assured that she isn't going to cause problems.”

Ron looked up at Trevor, completely puzzled. Trevor was not known for being careful or gentle and the fact that he seemed to want to treat the young woman with kid gloves was utterly confusing. Ron suspected that either this was some kind of ruse or that Trevor's sensitive side was at war with...his normal side, and Ron had been saddled with heading up the reconstruction. He found himself silently cursing the young woman for coming here, for disrupting the dynamic that he was used to. He had no idea what changed between that first night that he watched her through her window and now. But Trevor had had some kind of run in with her that he wouldn't spill about and since then his interest had gone from his standard, run-of-the-mill-menace to some kind of obsession sprinkled with a paranoia that rivaled Ron's own. And this bothered the hell out of Ron. The one thing that tempered him against Trevor's violent, unpredictable outbursts was the fact that he wore everything on his sleeve. He was sincere, almost to a fault, and this time, Ron just couldn't get a good read on what was going on in his friend's mind.

Trevor released Ron and began pacing again, less fervently this time. He looked at Ron. “Look, Ron. I'll tell you what. If, in one more week, she hasn't done anything else to raise our suspicions, I'll call the whole thing off. I'll bring her a fuckin' pie baked with goodwill and fuckin' sunshine, but until then...Those are standing orders,” Trevor said.

Ron sighed. He didn't completely trust that Trevor would drop this obsession in a week's time, but at the very least, if the woman stayed quiet, he would have a leg to stand on in arguing for his relief from this assignment. Hell, maybe by then Trevor would have found a new distraction in which to channel his mania. The other shoe would drop on this arms-running fiasco, or something. Ron nodded and gave Trevor one last glance before wordlessly exiting the trailer.

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Meadow huffed and grunted through the "O" shape of her mouth, allowing the impact of her feet meeting the ground to send ripples of exhilaration up her body as she took an early morning jog through Sandy Shores. The sun was just starting to reach over the horizon and it was still cool enough to exert every bit of energy that she could muster at that early hour, energy that had been in excess on this day.

Her sleep the night before had been fitful and after a couple of hours of tossing and turning, she started to get stir-crazy. She hadn't really been out for a run in a while, opting instead to do jumping jacks other sundry physical activities in the stucco house while she gauged the safety of Sandy Shores. She decided, finally, that it was time to suspend some of that caution.

She doubted that there would be many people out at this time anyway, save for some errant farmers in tractors making their way to their places of work. She had stuck as close as she could to the tree line initially, but now allowed herself to move freely through fields of cactus and tumbleweeds, abandoned cars and rusty old trailers. She had been going at max capacity for about 3 miles when she thought better of allowing her heart to explode and slowed to a walk. She stayed her gait for another quarter of a mile until she reached a small, green shack-like structure that could have housed any number of businesses in its day, most likely those that exploited people's vices if the bars on the windows were any indication.

She knelt over and felt her heart pounding in her ears, a slight burning in her chest, made milder by the dryness of the desert. After a couple of minutes, her breathing returned to a more normal rate. Soon, she could hear more than just her own bodily processes; A slight breeze, cars whizzing by on the highway. And then came a voice. A male voice, quiet at first but quickly reaching an angry crescendo.

This angry male voice was punctuated with soft whimpers from what sounded like a woman, though it was too faint for Meadow to tell for sure. The voices were coming from the back of this building, the perimeter of which was surrounded by a large chain link fence meant to connote some kind of informal parking structure, Meadow figured. Or to keep people out... Meadow straightened up and crept closer to the structure to close the distance between herself and the heated exchange. Maybe it was the flood of feel-good chemicals that she had begun to achieve shortly before stopping, or maybe she really was that bored, but against her better judgment, she breached the fence and inched along the side of the building. She moved closer to the disembodied voices.

The male voice had a thick, backwoods twang that Meadow had heard plenty of around here. She didn't know if there had been some great exodus from the South to this part of San Andreas or what, but either way, the accent was enough to tell her that she was dealing with a local. She knew that this someone was someone who knew this area and all of it's hiding places should he discover her and give chase.

"Now you listen to me, little lady," he said in that thick twang. "You are just one little lackey for your shit-heel Azteca brothers with, let's say, a less than _definitive_ immigration status. I am a very powerful man. And if your brothers wanna play at it like that, I would be most happy to take _you_ downtown for solicitation, maybe hand you over to immigration officials. Or, _better yet_ , back to whatever shit-heel coyote brought you into this town, little girl."

Yes, Meadow thought, this isn't your standard fare in the real world, but it sounds pretty typical of Sandy Shores. Part of her was practically screaming at her to get the hell out of there right this second. _What the hell was she thinking, didn't she know she was a sitting goddamn duck?_ Meadow put that thought down and continued to listen.

" _Please_ ," the yet unseen woman said in a thick Latin American accent. "They sent me to tell you, this is all, I don't make any decisions." It was plain by now, by the sound of her voice, that the lady was not only intimidated, but that she was crying, too.

"No, but you could make one hell of a bargaining chip, I reckon. They wanna cut me off a smaller piece than what we agreed on, then I'll collect from you instead," he countered.

“ _No, please_ ,” the woman pleaded.

Meadow heard the sound of sand being scraped around under struggling feet, heard the woman yelp, heard the man grunt as he wrestled her down, and that is when the remnants of her logical internal voice was stifled completely. Without thinking, she rounded the corner to find a big, stocky, sunburned man around forty-five years of age standing over a youngish Hispanic woman, on her knees, with a look so desperate that Meadow couldn't summon the memory of a more frightened face. The man was holding her up by her hair with one hand. His other hand wielded a very big hunting knife. The Hispanic woman's scared eyes met Meadow's for just a brief second before the man positioned the knife under her nose. He was fixing to disfigure the woman to send a message to the Aztecas but it only took a moment for the man to follow the frightened woman's gaze over to where Meadow stood.

As soon as he saw Meadow, he dropped the woman to the dusty desert floor. She must have had the wind knocked out of her, because when she collided with the ground, she made an _oof_ sound. The man straightened up, trying to make himself look big, puffing out his chest, starting bow-legged over to where Meadow stood before stopping suddenly to study her up and down. He smiled and sucked his teeth.

"Oh, sugar, did you ever pick the wrong party to come to," he chuckled.

Meadow didn't know what kind of expression she wore at that moment, but she hoped that it conveyed nothing of her current mental state. She was frightened, but true to the form that she had adopted for herself recently, she didn't retreat from the danger. She leaned into it. She didn't break eye contact with the blade-happy dime store cowboy before her.

 _"Let her go,"_ Meadow demanded, her voice barely above a whisper.

The man narrowed his eyes and huffed at her. "Little sister, I don't think that you've grasped just what you've stepped in coming here," he spat.

"Let her go," Meadow repeated, lower and more monotonously this time.

The man leaned back a little bit, eying her curiously. "Are you fuckin' funny in the head or something, lady," the man asked incredulously.

Meadow broke eye-contact for half a second to look at the woman who was still crouched down on the ground. She hoped that the quick glance said _Run_ but if it did, the woman didn't get the message because she remained there still, paralyzed with fear.

The man peered right into Meadow. It almost appeared as though he really was trying to figure out if she was insane or not, if she was even worth his time. Suddenly, though, his expression morphed from being quizzical to being washed over by white hot, testosterone-laden anger. He raised the knife, readying himself to plunge it right into Meadow's chest. Meadow instinctively took half a step back, first out of fright. But somewhere inside of that step, every atom of her body lit up with adrenaline, a chemical surge that imbued her little body with the strength and speed of a large predatory cat.

Every hour of combat training, every self-defense lesson she had ever had boiled up in a place well beneath her cognition, singing strangely clear instructions to her brain, which relayed them to her muscles. She kicked the man in the groin, hard. The force with which she delivered the kick was enough to get him to loosen his grip on the knife, which he promptly dropped.

In the midst of what basically amounted to a PCP trip, Meadow's cognizant mind, the part that was now slipping away rapidly, had a very sudden, very brief thought that that had been _too_ easy. He shouldn't have been so quick to let go, she thought. What if he was just messing with her, making her think that she had all the control so that she would get cocky and let her guard down. Believe it or not, she hadn't had a whole hell of a lot of experience with melee. But another thought occurred to her, almost simultaneously, that he had likely fully expected for her to run prior to him raising the knife to her, right before she got him in both his boys. He had expected for her brazen demands for his captive's release to have been the sum of her willpower and she had shown him otherwise. That thought made her giddy.

The man staggered around, trying to regain his footing, and while he did so, Meadow landed another kick, this time to his stomach. Surely, there was enough force behind that one to rupture something, Meadow thought. The man landed on his knees and, before he fell face first into the dirt, Meadow kicked him in the face, sending him backward.

Meadow was on autopilot now, completely at the mercy of the chemical dance going on in her brain, and in that, she was like a machine, with her nerves and synapses and hundreds of thousands of years of evolution pulling the levers. She walked the few steps to the man's head. Through the buzzing in her head, she could hear him gurgling, but that was it. Still, it was enough for her unseen masters to direct her foot upward, above his head, only to send it crashing down into his skull, one, two, three, four times. _Crack, squish, crack_.

Meadow stood breathless, gazing over the pulpy mess coming out of what was left of his head. She didn't come back to her senses immediately. Those returned to her in waves, and it was anyone's guess how much time had passed before enough waves had washed over her so that she could turn to the woman, still curled up on the ground, her face pallid, a hand covering her mouth, stifling a scream. She looked up at Meadow, obviously wondering if she was next. It was all over her face. That expression softened Meadow's stance, which was still rigid and threatening. Meadow still hadn't let the truth of what had just transpired sink in. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that the completely batshit animal that had reared up inside of her didn't allow her to dwell on it right this second.

"Go," she said quietly to the woman.

The woman only stared at her, afraid to move lest it should trigger another outburst.

"Go! Fucking _leave_ ," Meadow snapped, bluff charging the woman. This did the trick. The woman was on her feet in a split second, dashing past before disappearing around the corner. Meadow stood alone now, suddenly aware of the deafening silence around her. Not even the ambient sounds of cars on the highway, which had increased in volume with morning commuters, could disrupt that silence.

Her head hurt suddenly. Her brain seemed to be short-circuiting or something. The little zaps that she felt in her head were distinctly electrical in nature, but their locations were vague. She only knew that they were inside of her head and they hurt. Her muscles, that had been so weightless just moments before suddenly felt like they were being pulled toward the earth by some invisible magnet. The ground under her felt like it was ready to swallow her feet. It was a very uncomfortable feeling, the feeling like the surface of her feet was melding to the ground, like her senses and nerve-endings had suddenly been dialed to eleven.

Meadow was afraid to move, but she found the strength to turn around, to look at the man lying lifeless in the dirt. From this vantage, his head didn't look as fucked up as it had when she had first looked down at him immediately following the attack. It was almost as though some fairies had come to repair his face just enough to make what she had done more palatable to her.

 _You did that_. The thought rang in her head, as audible as an actual voice. _You did that_. The thought was so clear, so loud that it felt like it was strangling her brain. That thought, that almost-voice felt so _real_.

Her feet started to feel like her own again, her muscles felt lighter, and the zapping in her brain subsided after a moment. The thought-voice must have dragged her back to earth. She stumbled over to a rusty old oil drum and vomited. Two good heaves emptied her stomach's contents. She suddenly felt a little more like herself again, but she was terrified of what she had to do next, a thought that occurred to her with astonishing suddenness.

She gazed around at her surroundings, stopping in a part of that yard/parking lot that she hadn't seen before. Perhaps she had curried some favor in a past life, perhaps some murderous sprite had been sitting on her shoulder the whole time, perhaps it was just stupid fucking luck, but Meadow glanced up to see a commercial ice chest, one that hadn't been operational in years, most likely.

Since she had begun to feel sentient again, she had to consciously push past her feelings of disgust and panic and ready herself to touch him. Not a light touch, either. She would have to put her arms around him and hoist his dead weight into the ice chest and get the fuck out of there, like, _yesterday_. She grimaced at the thought of touching him. She didn't want for this experience to feel more real than the sight of him lying there had allowed it to feel.

Meadow reached down, under the collar of her t-shirt and pulled out her Saint Christopher medal. If she ever needed protection, it was now. She had performed this ritual more than once, but it had always been before she did the thing that put her in peril, not after. It was for this reason, perhaps, that as she thumbed the little talisman hanging around her neck, she was unable to summon a prayer. She just felt the ridges of the pewter medal and hoped that somehow, whatever it was she needed would come to her, an answer to her wordless, void prayer. She dropped the medal back down the front of her shirt, knowing suddenly that she could no longer hesitate. With that thought, she began to walk toward the body.


	5. Problems

_Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit._ These were the only thoughts that Ron's panic-brain would allow to permeate the void. He fought to keep the golf cart steady on the road back to his trailer. His heart was pounding inside his chest, sweat was pouring into his eyes from under his fisherman's cap, making him wince. He felt a huge lump in his throat that no amount of swallowing would put down and he kept having to pull over to wipe off his glasses, which were becoming perpetually foggy with the condensation from his sweaty face.

All told, the journey back took him eight and a half minutes, roughly, but it felt like longer. He mulled everything over. Firstly, he couldn't decide if it was fortuitous or a horrible, unfair cosmic mistake that woke him up at 4:30 a.m. But in any case, Trevor's instincts had been right about...about _something_. It had been less than a week and the young woman in the stucco house, _Meadow_ was her name, had done something _suspicious_ , to use Trevor's phrasing. He was both excited and full of dread at telling Trevor what had he had just witnessed.

The golf cart came to a grinding halt in front of their trailers. Ron was almost thrown over the steering wheel. The thing had some get up and go, especially with a nervous driver behind the wheel. Ron sat with his thoughts for a moment, trying to think about how he would break the news to Trevor. He tried to anticipate Trevor's reaction. Even when Ron did as he was told and made Trevor aware of new developments, he wasn't always met with gratitude. And there was simply no telling how he would take this.

He climbed out of the golf cart and proceeded gingerly toward Trevor's porch. He ascended the stairs, took one last breath, and pushed the door open. “Trevor,” he called weakly. He heard a stirring in the bedroom. He followed the noise. “Trevor,” he whispered, not wanting to startle the sleeping giant on the bed. Trevor crinkled his nose and shifted his head, but was obviously still asleep. Ron looked skyward, frustrated that not only had he just seen what he had seen and that it was his imperative to report it, but that in order to do so, he had to wake Trevor, which was his least favorite chore.

He pushed down on the bed and then recoiled, once again uttering Trevor's name. No response. He paced about the room, wondering if it would be out of line for him to wait until Trevor was awake.

“Ron, if you wanna relieve me of my morning wood, just come out with it. I hate when people waffle on that subject,” Trevor muttered, sleepily. Ron gave a faint laugh, relieved that he hadn't been clocked already. It was only 6 a.m., afterall, and Trevor was not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination.

“What the fuck are you doing here Ron? Sun's barely up,” complained Trevor.

“It's-It's about that girl, that, that Meadow,” Ron stammered. At this, Trevor's eyes fluttered open. He stretched his arms before propping himself up on one elbow. He peered at Ron.

“What about her,” he grumbled.

Ron gulped. He hadn't sufficiently prepared what he would say, hadn't really known what to make of the situation, really, even though he had had a front-row seat.

“You were right, boss. She's-”

“Yeah,” demanded Trevor, irritated. Ron began pacing.

“She just _iced_ a guy Trevor! Out behind the old check-cashing place! She _killed_ him, Trevor.”

Trevor sat up on the edge of the bed, never taking his eyes off of Ron.

“You're sure,” he asked firmly. “You are _certain_ that it was her?”

“I followed her from her house, Trevor. She was out on a jog. I lost her for a bit, but I found her again and didn't take my binoculars off of her, and I saw her walk out back behind that check-cashing place and she killed him!”

“How? Was she packin'?”

Ron was sweating again. Just recounting the whole horror show made him schvitz a bit.

“With...With her _feet_ , Trevor. She _stomped_ him to death.”

Trevor's eyes lit up in a way that Ron had only seen when he was angry. But there was a different quality to the expression that Trevor was wearing. It wasn't quite delight, but it wasn't far off.

“She just...Killed him? For no reason,” Trevor asked, making it sound more like a statement than a question.

“No, well, yes...I...I don't know. He was roughing up some other lady, Mexican, I think, and...That's when she walked back there and...He was about to stab her with this big knife, see...”

“So, she was defending herself,” Trevor asked, eyes still wide with that look that Ron couldn't quite figure out.

“Well, I guess so...It...It was hard to tell, Trevor-” Trevor held his hand up, signaling for Ron to stop talking. He stood up and paced around for a minute, pondering something, before turning back to Ron.

“Who was the guy,” Trevor asked.

Ron searched his mind, looking for an answer that would satisfy, finding none. “He was wearing a Stetson. I couldn't really see his face, but...He was definitely white, mid-forties to early-fifties, pretty big guy, I 'spose...”

“What did she do with the witness,” he asked.

“She let her leave, boss,” Ron replied.

“What did she do with the body,” asked Trevor, perfectly monotone. His questions were coming out rapid-fire.

“She, uh, she put it in an ice chest,” Ron replied.

Trevor's face was completely unreadable. He stared at the floor for a moment before lifting his eyes to Ron.

“Tell me, Ron. Did she seem...Upset? Was she panicked or...Did she seem like she had done it before?”

Ron thought about it for a moment. “Well, she vomited, but...I don't know, otherwise, she seemed calm,” Ron said.

Trevor thought about this for a moment. He pressed his lips together and nodded.

“So what are we gonna do, boss,” asked Ron, nervously.Trevor looked up at him.

“Well, Ron. I am going to have my cup of coffee and my morning shit, and then you and I are going to go and pay that Meadow a visit,” Trevor said.

Ron's face dropped. “I don't wanna do that,” he said.

“Tough shit, Ron,” Trevor said, his tone completely flip. He began walking toward the kitchen, but stopped and turned to Ron. “If you're worried about her figuring out that you were spying on her, I wouldn't. Sounds like she has some more important shit occupying her mind at the moment. Unless she decides to kill you too,” he said sarcastically. Ron put his head down, but realized that he was pouting and straightened up before Trevor saw. 

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Meadow stood in front of her bathroom mirror searching for her own face. It's not as though she didn't recognize that she indeed had a face, but at this moment, she was not able to see herself in it. It wasn't the first time that this had happened. No, the first time was after she had been kicked out of the Navy, hours after her meeting with her superior officers and some investigators in which they explained that her discharge would be an honorable one, that they would list her claustrophobia as a disruptive mental anguish, and that this is how it would remain under the proviso that she didn't violate the gag order barring her from discussing the “training exercise” involving Merrywhether guards aboard her fleet. Yes, Merrywhether guards whom she had pegged as E.C., and whom she had dealt with in exactly the way that she was trained to do. And that was the thanks she got for it.

This, though, was different than that day four years ago. That day, she had felt a crushing sadness, a rejection that she could seldom afford after being abandoned a dozen or so times in her life...No this time the onus was on her. She had let that animal inside of her that, up to this point, had been sated by surreptitiously _shooting_ people from a _safe distance_ , overtake her and she had acted like a fucking psychopath. Being a hired gun didn't make her an angel, she wasn't so deluded as to allow herself to think so. But after her time in the service, after what had happened with Merrywhether...Bad guys were bad guys, and Badger had never given her a job that didn't fall squarely within her ethical realm, wrong-headed as it may be. In some way, she still thought of herself as a soldier, even though that title had been stripped from her for all intents and purposes.

She ran her fingers through her wet hair. She had needed to scrub her sweat and that guy's blood from her body, and she did so vigorously, but she still felt filthy. She slipped out of her towel and into a sundress, the only clean garment that she had handy, besides her undies. She always had clean undies. She turned and looked at her toilet, making sure that the lid to the tank wasn't askew. That was where she had decided to store the clothes and her shoes, hermetically sealed, until she was able to burn them. She was about to slip back into her wretched self-examination when she heard a knock at the door.

She froze. She didn't dare move lest a creaky floor give away her position. Surely, nobody saw what she had done, right? Not that she had been careful, or anything, but it was practically in the wee hours of the morning, not a soul around except... _Except for that lady_ , she thought.

Another knock came, louder this time, followed by a familiar voice.

“Kitten! Kitten, it's me, open up,” yelled Trevor from the other side of the door.

She peered back into the mirror. She wasn't seriously thinking about answering the door for that lunatic, was she? No, what she needed right now was quiet contemplation and to devise some kind of plan, to phone Badger and figure out a way to get her out of this place. It wasn't working out.

“Kitten, I know you're in there. Quit playing games!” Then again, she was desperate for someone to distract her from her own thoughts. This was probably the loneliest that she had felt since landing in Sandy Shores. She walked to the door, slowly enough to give herself a chance to change her mind, but soon found herself opening the door to Trevor Philips. He stood before her in a blue plaid cowboy shirt, dark jeans, and work boots.

“Took you long enough,” he said. “I thought I was going to have to use Ron here as a battering-ram.”

Meadow looked past Trevor to see a middle-aged man wearing red plaid and a fisherman's cap, staring at her nervously from behind thick eyeglasses.

“What are you doing here, Tiger,” she said flatly, turning back to Trevor. Trevor pushed past her into the house, followed closely by Ron.

“Well, I thought you'd be happy to see me,” he replied. “We haven't had one of our talks in a while and I thought that it was high time we remedied that.”

Meadow looked up at him and smiled faintly.

“Sure I'm happy to see you, Tiger. I just wasn't expecting...”

She noticed at that moment that Ron was staring at her in a way that she didn't like. Trevor noticed and glared over at Ron, who was obviously subordinate in the relationship, and quit staring at her as soon as he saw Trevor's face.

“Don't mind him. He hasn't been in the company of a female since his divorce,” Trevor said.

Meadow considered the nervous man before replying “No worries. Can I get you two something to drink? It's after noon, so I can have a beer with you this time.”

Trevor pointed a finger at her enthusiastically and said “Yes! _Yes_ , beers all-around. Ron, you wanna beer?”

“I'm fine,” replied Ron. Meadow glared at him.

“No, you're not, Ron. Have a drink with us,” she said without a hint of enthusiasm. She had a policy of not drinking around people that skeeved her out unless they were drinking too, so as not to give them an undue advantage. Ron smiled weakly in response and nodded. At that, Meadow retrieved three beers from her fridge, uncapped them and distributed them.

“To new friends,” said Trevor, raising his beer.

“Hear, hear,” replied Meadow, locking eyes with Ron, who quickly averted his gaze.

Meadow took a long drink of her beer, wishing that she had started drinking hours ago. She hopped up on her kitchen island, allowing Trevor and Ron to seat themselves at the bar stools.

“So, Kitten,” started Trevor,"Are you getting nice and cozy in Sandy Shores?”

The disingenuous tone of his question was not lost on her. She tried to hide her bemusement at this, their latest encounter. It seemed that he was wearing a different face every time she saw him. Their first encounter, he had been a right bastard to her, their second, he had acted like a nervous, adolescent boy. He was all over the map with his demeanor.

“I'm getting acclimated alright,” she said. “Sandy Shores is swell.”

Trevor looked at her blankly. She thought she might have offended him with her thinly-veiled sarcasm. But he broke into a closed-mouth smile.

“I'll say you are,” he said with a little growl. “At least, Ron tells me so.”

Meadow's stomach turned at the mention of Ron. Yes, he was sitting right in front of her but she was trying her damndest to pretend that he wasn't.

“Oh, does he? That's funny because I've never fucking laid eyes on Ron in my life,” she said. Ron shifted nervously in his seat while Trevor got up from his and started walking toward Meadow, never taking his eyes off of her. He stopped right in front of her and looked at her, wearing a placid but vaguely threatening expression.

“Now, calm down Kitten,” he said. He gestured toward Ron. “Ron, see...I've known Ron for quite a while now and I assure you that he's harmless. He's just been looking out for your best interest.”

Meadow's regret at having let these two into her house hit her like a ton of bricks and she jumped down from the island and started backing away, eyes flitting between the two men. “I'd like for you to go now.”

Trevor held his hands up in mock defense. “What? Go? Now? We were just getting acquainted,” he whined facetiously.

Meadow started for her bedroom where her duffle bag was, a duffle bag that just so happened to be her arsenal. She didn't know what Trevor was playing at but she'd already committed homicide today, what was one more dead body? Of course, that wasn't how she normally felt about human life, per se, but she wasn't exactly in her right mind at the moment. Trevor held up his arm and blocked her way. She stared up at him, her eyes no doubt betraying some measure of terror.

“Trevor, I think we oughta go now,” Ron muttered nervously.

Trevor looked at Meadow with an expression that she couldn't place, either out of sheer terror or because he didn't want for her to be able to read him. She didn't know. “Meadow,” he said with what she thought might sound like sincerity, but couldn't be sure. “I need for you to calm down and listen to me. I'm going to disclose something to you that you aren't going to be happy about, but I need for you to hear me out and don't do anything rash, understand?”

Meadow closed her eyes tight and breathed heavily through her nose, trying like hell to maintain some veneer of composure, well aware that she was failing miserably. “I told Ron to follow you. He's been following you for the last couple of weeks,” Trevor said in an even tone.

Meadow opened her eyes again and looked up at him, shaking now. “Before you freak out,” he said extending a finger in her face, “I did it because I was protecting my own skin, Ron's too. The last guy that lived here caused me some serious fucking problems, and I wanted to make sure that you weren't going to do the same thing. There is no need to take it personally or to get any crazy ideas about what my intentions were, okay?”

Meadow felt light-headed.

“But the good news is,” Trevor continued in the same smooth, calm voice, “it's over now. Because guess what, Kitten? Ron told me that you were in trouble. He saw what happened this morning with the cowboy and the Mexican lady...”

Meadow shuddered at this. Her breathing was even more shallow than it had been and she couldn't hold Trevor's gaze any longer. “And now I don't need for him to follow you anymore because _I know_ , Meadow. _I know_. But I'm not judging you. I mean, I know that you know what kind of person I am by now, right?” Trevor asked.

Meadow nodded rapidly, leaning against the wall for support. If she didn't know based on his reputation, she knew now given his apparently cavalier attitude toward homicide.

“So what we're going to do...Is we're going to fix this little problem together,” Trevor said. “Because you didn't plan it. I know that you didn't plan it, so you probably didn't cover your tracks all that well, and we need to keep you out of prison.” He booped her nose as he said that.

Meadow didn't realize it, but she had been holding her breath for a while. She forgot to breathe sometimes, and, well, this was one of the times. Before she could do anything about it, her vision started to go black and she felt her knees buckle. She felt a pair of arms catch her just before she went out completely.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meadow's eyes fluttered open a few minutes after she had passed out. Trevor had carried her over to the couch while Ron paced about, flicking his hands nervously. Trevor ignored him, instead focusing his attentions on Meadow. He decided not to force her awake, deciding that she deserved a little peace today and fuck knew when she would be able to sleep next. Plus, he had gotten kind of sick of her looking up at him with her big scared doe-eyes. Sure they were a pretty pair of green peepers, but he hated that look that some women gave him when they were in his presence, like he was going to do something unspeakable to them. He hated imagining what was going on behind the eyes when they were giving him that look.

Now her eyes were open again, struggling to focus until she was looking at him intently, that fear seeming to have assuaged some.

“You alright,” he asked earnestly.

She nodded slowly. She blinked and looked wordlessly around the room, narrowing her eyes at Ron, who was still pacing about. She looked back at Trevor.

“Are you going to kill me,” she asked, her voice completely devoid of any kind of concern.

Trevor leaned back at her words, genuinely stunned by this bullshit question. “What in the fuck makes you think I came here to kill you,” he said, trying not to sound too angry.

Meadow glanced off to the side, considering her next answer, but not too carefully, as evidenced by what she said next.

“I figured that you came her to torture me by making me cop to what I did, and that when you were through you would kill me so that I would die feeling guilty,” she said.

Trevor was at a genuine loss for how to respond to that. He closed his eyes tight and squeezed the bridge of his nose, inhaling deeply before looking back up at her.

“What kind of twisted fuck do you take me for, Kitten? When I said that I came here to help you, I meant that I came here to help you. Sure, having a little dirt on you is nice, it gives me a little bit of an edge with you, but I promise you, I will only hold that over your head if you _fuck_ me, okay? But until that day comes, what I need for you to do is have a little fucking trust,” he said firmly. “Can you do that?”

Meadow squeezed her eyes shut before opening them again and staring blankly. Trevor was growing frustrated.

“Earth to Kitten! Come in, Kitten,” he shouted. He cupped her face in his hand and forced her to look at him. She was silent for a moment and then she sighed and nodded.

“I trust you,” she said.

“Good,” he replied. He held her face for another moment, noting how soft it felt in his rough hand before he quickly retracted his hand and stood up.

“Now, what we're going to do, is we're going to hang around here until it gets dark. Then we're going to go and get the ice chest and we're going to dump it, okay?” Meadow seemed a bit stunned, but nodded up at him. Trevor walked to the counter and grabbed their abandoned beers, bringing her one.

“Finish that,” he said. She didn't protest, immediately guzzling down what remained and waving the empty bottle at him, indicating that she would like another. He chuckled. “That'a girl,” he said before going to the fridge.

 

They passed the rest of the afternoon playing _get to know ya_. Meadow confirmed that she was indeed from L.S., denying that she had left behind an abusive husband, and explaining to Trevor that, yes, she had killed before, but that it was always under highly-controlled circumstances and never to sate any kind of blood lust. Trevor responded in kind by telling Meadow that most of the shit that she had heard about him was probably true, but if there was anything that she'd heard that she couldn't deal with, she should kindly assume that it was in that smallish category of things that were either heavily embellished or outright fallacious. She readily agreed to that.

Trevor got the feeling that she really had come to trust him in that short time, at least a little bit, enough to know that the worst inventions of her imagination where he was concerned were just that: Inventions. Especially that bit about him torturing her with guilt before clipping her. Not even he could have thought of something that cold.

She allowed Trevor to peruse her house, too tired from the days events to protest and also probably figuring that she had nothing to hide from him at this point. Not that it would have made much of a difference if she didn't give him her blessing. He probably would have poked around anyway. He was looking for saucy things like sex toys or lingerie, but found very little in the way of that type of fare. What he found instead was an envelope with bunch of photographs accompanied by a note.

_Mija, I rounded up all these photographs of you. I can't bear to look at them since you don't come around anymore. I always considered you my daughter, but these days, you don't seem interested in maintaining a relationship with me. I know that you were hurt by what happened with the Navy, but you must keep going. Don't throw away the gifts that you have. You have a lot to give the world. Hold on to these and bring them back to me when you are ready to talk. I love you, daughter._

_Love, Naida_

Trevor pulled out the photographs and began studying them. They were all pictures of Meadow at various ages. He didn't linger too long over the ones of her when she was a kid because, quite frankly, he wanted to be able to jerk off to her mental image later and he didn't want the photos of her as a kid souring him on that experience. Instead he poured over photos of her taken over what he guessed were the last few years. Photos of her in a naval uniform, wearing a headset. Photos of her with a medic band on her arm during some kind of training exercise. Her in a black cap and gown, probably a college graduation. Another of her in scrubs, with a stethoscope around her neck, holding a clipboard. _Christ_ , he thought. _What the hell makes someone like her join the life?_

He put the photographs back in the envelope. He opened the green duffle bag on the floor by the bed. She was armed to the teeth, but that was in no way exotic to him. He closed the bag and went back out into the living room.

Meadow appeared to be dozing on the couch. Ron busied himself by paging through a gun catalog that he'd found on the counter.

“Ron, I need you to go get a forklift. There's one at the airfield,” Trevor said.

Ron sprung up, happy to have a job put in front of him. Trevor could tell that Ron was still squeamish around Meadow after all the shade she'd thrown his way for stalking her.

“Right away, Trevor,” Ron said before leaving the house, spryly.

Trevor knelt down by the couch. Meadow was laying on her back with her arm flung over her eyes. He took the opportunity to look her over closely, shamelessly. It was the least he should get for helping her clean up her mess, he figured. She stirred.

“You awake,” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, removing her arm from her face to look at him.

“Ron's going to get us a forklift and then we're going to go to the check-cashing place and get the freezer.” She sighed heavily through her nose and looked at the ceiling.

“Why are you being so nice to me? Coming around here talking about solving my problems,” she asked.

Trevor shrugged. “Well, why the fuck not,” he countered, defensively.

She whipped around onto her side, propped herself up on her arm and looked at him. When she did, the necklace that she wore shifted and feel between her breasts, which were prominently displayed in that dress she was wearing. He was careful not to lick the _outside_ of his lips at the sight.

“Because people don't do things like this. They don't help people hide their skeletons without expecting something in return,” she said. She pulled herself up and sat, facing him. “So what is it? What do you want from me,” she asked, her eyes blazing with intention.

Trevor was still half-eyeing what was under her dress as he listened, and he had half a mind to tell her just what it was that he would _like_ to receive in return, but thought better of it given the kind of day she'd had.

He raised his eyebrows at her and shrugged. She cocked her head at him. He couldn't help but notice that this was one of her signature mannerisms and it was a fucking adorable one.

“If it will take you off edge...I don't know, maybe you could help me with some projects on an as-needed basis. Nothin' heavy, mind you, but I can always use someone who can handle a gun. As long as you're a little more discreet with a gun than you are with your foot,” he said dryly.

Meadow laughed despite herself. Trevor knew that reaction all too well. Once you became seasoned, and it only took one incident to make you _fucking seasoned_ , it was all you could do to maintain whatever scrap of sanity that still existed in you. To laugh a little at the sickness of it all. And he could tell that she had crossed some threshold today, even if she didn't know it herself.

“I'm an _ace_ with a gun,” she said. Trevor detected a mild flirtation when she said this, though it might have just been relief at him setting her precious fucking condition for her. 

“Well, _alright_ then,” he replied. 


	6. Stop Thinking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains sexual content.

Meadow shivered and looked on as Trevor surveyed the inside of the ice chest behind the old check-cashing place. She was sickened at the appropriateness of where this had all taken place as she had indeed “cashed that cowboy's check,” as it were. It was dark now and she was anxious to get this over with. The events of the past eighteen hours had her knackered. She was ready to dip into the muscle relaxers that she kept on hand for extra-bad menstrual cramps.

Trevor had his back to her and he shifted between the doors, trying to get a good look at what she had done. Meadow didn't really know why this was necessary. He had already confirmed that, yes, there was a stiff in the ice chest. Why was he gawking at it, she wondered. It was horrible what she had done. Why did he want such a good look?

Finally, it seemed, he was satisfied with what he had seen. He clucked and said “ _Je_ -sus Christ, Kitten. Your tiny foot really did a number on this guy.” Meadow rolled her eyes, a little bit miffed that the sensitivity that he had shown to her plight earlier seemed to have evaporated. “Say,” he continued, “you weren't jogging in soccer cleats or steel-toe boots, were ya? 'Cause I cannot for the life of me see how a standard tennis shoe could do this to a man's head.”

Meadow leaned against the Bodhi and sucked in some of the cool night air, trying to ignore him. The desert got cold at night, she noticed. It was nice, but she felt a little vulnerable shivering like she was. She hadn't thought to grab a jacket and now she tried to keep her shivering under control out of some vague sense of propriety.

“Where the fuck is Ron with that forklift,” Trevor wondered out loud.

It was as if Ron had heard Trevor's prayer. He rounded the corner at almost that very moment. Meadow was surprised at her relief to see Ron. She didn't know why she was so pissed off at him and not so much at Trevor, who had spear-headed the stalking campaign and had admitted as much. Perhaps it was because she was worried that he might have seen her at her most vulnerable, just coming out of the shower or brushing her teeth. Not that those things were so bad on their own, but when you think you're alone, they take on a kind of sacred intimacy and that might have been breached for Meadow. She couldn't be sure, though. She was too scared to ask.

“Ronald, you beautiful bastard! What took you so long,” said Trevor. Ron cut the engine to the forklift and climbed out.

“There were some bikers hanging out around the airfield. I didn't want to attract them to my position,” Ron said with a surprising amount of intention, given what Meadow had seen of him so far.

“Well, those bikers cost us some precious time, so we better get to it,” Trevor said. “Luckily, the last owners of this ice chest didn't value it enough to chain it to the building so that'll save us a step.”

Meadow was eager to get it over with, so she stepped forward and asked “What can I do to help?”

Trevor and Ron both looked her way, startled at her eagerness. Trevor smiled at her wryly before looking over at Ron.

“Ron and I will take this leg, Kitten. Getting this into the Bodhi will be a two-man job. Your part comes later,” he said, sounding weirdly suggestive.

Meadow's heart skipped a beat at the same time her stomach did a little somersault. She should have known he'd had dubious motives for helping her. She didn't even want to begin to imagine what it was he had in mind. He must have noticed some trepidation in her because he shot her a strange look. “Whatever your thinking, _stop thinking it_ , Kitten,” he practically spat, sounding offended at whatever expression she was wearing. “Ron's gonna help me load it, you're going to help me sink it into the still part of Cassidy Creek. Just relax.” Meadow did relax, immediately.

Loading the thing into the back of the Bodhi was pretty easy. Meadow hadn't been sure that it was going to fit, but she kept that thought to herself, and it was a good thing because she would have been showing her ignorance, something that she wasn't too keen doing on right at the moment. She was starting to feel like she was putting Trevor and Ron out. That coupled with the guilt that was still there from the incident was making her feel pretty raw.

They loaded the thing up and strapped it down in the truck with a few quick, coordinated motions before Trevor got into the driver's side of the Bodhi.

“That'll do it,” he chirped. “Now get outta here, Ron. Cut the lights and stay off the main roads. When you get to the airfield, stick a rock on the forklift's accelerator. It can ghost-ride itself back to the hangar,” he said. Meadow couldn't tell if he was joking or not. “Oh,” he added, “and take that oil drum with Meadow's puke with you, stash it somewhere on the way. We don't wanna leave her calling card, just in case.”That might have been the most absurd thing she'd heard all day and she regretted answering him earlier when he'd asked her where she had “tossed.” Ron really didn't leave out any details, she had thought. Still, she was relieved that he seemed to be covering her ass as much as possible, given the circumstances.

“Sure thing, Trevor,” Ron said compliantly before climbing into the forklift, picking up the oil drum with little effort, and riding off into the dark. Meadow climbed into the passenger seat of the Bodhi.

“Cassidy Creek, huh,” she said. “I've never been there.” Trevor looked at her, a startled look in his eye.

“Well you have to go, it's the crown jewel of Blaine County! I'll take you there some time when it's daylight,” he said.

Meadow stared at him. “Are you sure I'm going to want to go there after this,” she asked flatly.

Trevor ignored her and started the engine, and off they went to get rid of _her problem_.

Trevor didn't seem to be heeding his own advice to Ron to stay off the main road. As they drove out of Sandy Shores, Meadow glanced around looking for headlights, worried that someone would see the big, ancient ice chest in the back. They should have put a tarp over it, she thought. Trevor noticed and reached his hand over to her squeezing her shoulder.

“What's on your mind, princess,” he asked, sounding earnest.

Meadow was relieved that she didn't visibly flinch at his touch. She was more than a little on edge.

“I'm worried someone's gonna see,” she said without thinking. Trevor chuckled. It was a mischievous laugh, one that you might expect from a boy of twelve. Meadow couldn't help but smile inwardly at it. It was kind of endearing.

“Let me tell you something. If I was going to get caught, it would have happened already. I've done shit like this pah- _lenty_ of times, so many times, in fact, that it's about of as much consequence to me as changing my shirt,” he said.

Meadow considered his statement, simultaneously cognizant of how much that should have disturbed her and puzzled at how much it...didn't. She didn't want to analyze that thought process now, though, and couldn't have if she'd wanted to. The two made their way through Stab City, out onto Calafia Road. The moon was full and bright that night and Meadow looked around, allowing herself to take in the greenery that contrasted so with the sand-heap that was Sandy Shores.

They eventually arrived at Cassidy Trail, where the ride got decidedly more bumpy. Meadow glanced back at the freezer to see if it had come loose at all. No, it hadn't. Trevor and Ron had done a fine job of strapping it down.

“Here's where things get exciting, Kitten,” Trevor said after a while on the trail.

He stopped suddenly, put it in reverse, and cranked his wheels to the right, and began to edge back toward Cassidy Creek. This part of the creek was quite a bit more still than the gorges that they had passed a couple of miles back. Once he was about a quarter of the way down the embankment, he put the Bodhi in park and got out of the truck. He set about unstrapping the cooler. Just like when he had strapped it in, it only took him a few quick motions. He then opened the tail gait and then got back in the driver's seat. “Hold on,” he said as he put the truck into reverse and gunned it, effectively sending them flying backward.

Meadow yelped and grabbed for two points of contact, one hand on the back of her seat, one gripping the top of the windshield. He abruptly stomped on the brakes, sending the ice chest flying backward into the water.

Meadow was stunned. She was no physicist, but what she knew about force, gravity, and motion did not allow for her to understand how Trevor had pulled that off so seamlessly. Did his insane luck also allow him to toy with the laws of the universe? He looked over at her and grinned.

“Time for the Kitten Show,” he said in a low voice. He reached under her seat, grazing her calf with his arm as he did. He extracted a shotgun, handing it to her. “Let's see what you're made of,” he said.

Meadow's heart skipped a beat, but she dutifully stood up and climbed back into the bed of the Canis Bodhi, looking toward the the ice chest that bobbed slightly in the water. Trevor stood up, too, but didn't follow her into the very back, standing on his seat, but he still leaned in close to her, inches from her ear. 

"Don't shoot yet," he said. He hopped out of the truck and ran toward the water. Meadow could hardly comprehend what she was seeing before it happened. He ran into the water, with his clothes still on. He was thigh deep into the water when he leaned over and gave the thing a little shove. It was just buoyant enough for the force that he exerted to push it out a little farther where a slight current sucked it out of the shallows. All the while, it bubbled and bobbed. Trevor waded back out of the water and ran back up to the truck. He hopped into the driver's side and stood on the seat behind Meadow.

The chest was already sinking rapidly, but somehow, time was slowed down. The gun was...It was a part of a _ceremony._ Meadow knew what this was now. She hadn't needed to come out here. He could have come out here by himself to defy gravity and time. He brought her out here for...For what? For a little pageantry?

"Now," he said.

Meadow's comprehension of time was fucked at this point, as was her self-concept. All the pieces that had come together just moments before just shattered. She didn't turn around to tell Trevor that she knew what this was. She didn't take a moment to decide whether or not she wanted to be a part of what might have been some kind of sick initiation of some sort. She didn't hesitate at all at his word. Meadow raised the gun and shot the sliver of the chest that was still visible three times in rapid succession, the gun's recoil barely phasing her. She blinked and there was nothing left there but bubbles. Bubbles that had been almost severe a moment ago now rose daintily, like in a glass of champagne. 

She lowered the shotgun, handing it to Trevor without looking back at him. She could feel his eyes on her, but she didn't dare return the stare. It was a moment before Trevor broke the silence.

“Crack shot, Kitten.” Meadow turned around to face him. She didn't want to look into the black water anymore. She didn't want to watch the chest disappear completely. It felt too much like some kind of finality and the thought of watching it sink made her feel bleak. Her face was close to his, now, though they were separated by the driving light bar on the truck. She didn't let herself touch him. They stood there for a moment, looking at each other, both of them perhaps saying a silent eulogy for that moment that had come and gone. She shivered again. Trevor climbed into the driver's seat. Meadow took this to mean that it was time to go, climbed back up front and sat down. Instead of starting the engine, though, Trevor reached under the seat again and pulled out a jacket. It was a denim thing, lined with sheepskin. He handed it over to her, barely looking her way. She stared at him as she took it from him, draping it over her bare shoulders. He shoved the shotgun under his seat before finally looking at her, looking like he wanted to say something. But the words must have been escaping him at that moment. She looked back at him, hoping that her eyes were pleading with him to say something, anything to make this moment feel less desperate. He sighed and started the engine and they made their way back up the trail, the way that they came.

 

Meadow rocked nervously back and forth in the passenger seat of the Bodhi. She was getting anxious to get home, hoping that the resolution that she had been anticipating before might come back to her, its rightful heir. Trevor had pulled into a gas station parking lot and headed inside. Meadow didn't know if she should follow him or not, so she opted to stay put. She turned the radio up, just a smidge, hoping that the sound would offer some kind of distraction.

Moments later, Trevor emerged, closed the tailgate, which he had left open, and quickly put them back on the road. His demeanor seemed to have changed somewhat in the moments that they had been apart. He was less morose, even a little bit cheery.

“I got you something,” Trevor said, reaching into his shirt pocket. He pulled something out, something wrapped in white plastic. It was confectionery by the look at it. He put it into Meadow's hand. She looked down at it. It was cold. A popsicle. She looked up at him. When he saw her face, his eyes narrowed.

“What? It's a popsicle for chrissakes, not rat poison. I thought it would put a smile on your face,” he said.

When he talked to her like that, like one would a pouting child, it ignited something in her. It wasn't anger, more of a need really. A need for what, she wasn't sure, but she decided to accept the popsicle even though it was a confusing gesture. She pulled the white plastic down over the top and immediately stuck it in her mouth, crumpling up the wrapper and shoving it into the pocket of the jacket that Trevor had loaned her. He was staring at her now, barely hiding his intrigued, if not servile expression.

“Thank you,” Meadow told him. The words came out more flatly than she would have liked. They sat quietly for a moment. It only took a moment before Trevor started huffing, his gaze flitting between her and the road.

“Jesus, are you going to say something? It's been like having a CPR dummy in the passenger seat since we left the creek,” he said.

“I was waiting for you to say something,” she said. Her mouth was full of a piece of the popsicle, making her sound goofy.

“'Fuck sake, Meadow, I know that today has been... _awkward_ , but what happened to the little spitfire I first met in the bar, huh,” he asked forcefully. “I'd do just about anything to get a rise out of you right now.”

 _“Don't,”_ Meadow said. The word just kind of slipped out. That pissed him off a little bit, it would seem, that she wouldn't indulge him. He accelerated down the dirt street, quickly gaining speed. Meadow tensed.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing, Trevor,” she yelled.

Before she could say anything else, he jerked the steering wheel to the right, sending them over a sizable speed bump, a speed bump that he knew was there in the road. He's probably done this to a thousand victims. The force of this sent Meadow up and across the center console. She stopped herself just before her head collided with Trevor's. The popsicle had been ejected from her hand.

She hadn't realized how close they had been to home when he pulled up in front of her house. She didn't move from her new spot, less than a foot away from Trevor when he cut the engine. “It's been a long fucking day Trevor,” she said tersely, trying to keep herself from yelling. “I am _sorry_ that I am not exactly a _laugh_ right now, but-”

“But,” Trevor interrupted, “you would rather be anywhere on the fucking planet than in this vehicle with me, right _Kitten_ ,” he spat. He let himself yell. His face was so close to hers, she could almost taste his breath. “Everything was just hunky fucking dory until you had to watch the makeshift coffin of someone that _you killed_ sink to the bottom of a fucking creek and I'm the fucking boogeyman that make you watch! Is that a little too real for you, Kitten? No planning, no _fifty yard_ advantage? That was a bridge too far? How the _fuck_ are you still so afraid!”

Meadow stared at him, almost shaking, imbibing all of his indictments.

She didn't want to tell him that she was terrified that this was it. That she would never see him again after tonight. It was the sickest thing. He was right, she was angry and terrified of what he had made her do. Normally, she could tell if someone was trying to pull a power play with her, whether or not they were trying to put her under their thumb. But her mind couldn't shake the notion that this was a part of his kindness, that he needed to keep her yoked to what she had done instead of letting her divorce herself from it. That in his world, this was for the best. That he had some esoteric knowledge of some type, that even if you could bury something away from the rest of the world, you could never bury it from yourself.

At the same time, she was scared that all the kindness that he had shown her that day was a one-off, that it would effectively truncate any further interactions between the two of them. That he wasn't some kind of murderous sage that would hold her hand through her trying to grasp what she had done. All of the things she had done, not just braining a cowboy with her shoe. Because she felt a little bit like she needed someone like him now, or even him specifically. The thing that had scared her before, her attraction to this man, who was like napalm, who coated everything around him in chaos like an aerosol...It wasn't a game anymore. The flirting and the deliberate button-pushing? That was over. She knew it, but there had to be something more.

All of a sudden, with his words still echoing in her ears, staring into his eyes more deeply than she had up to this point, she became lucid. The lucidity washed away all the opaqueness, all the confusion and all her self-doubt. She thought back at the second time that they had met, in her yard, how she had ended that conversation in a way that guaranteed that he would come back. And he had. Now she would hold onto that memory superstitiously.

She felt something trickling down her chest, a little bit cold and sticky. She looked down and saw that a tiny piece of the popsicle had broken off and landed there and that now it was melting. Trevor seemed to notice, too. With her thumb, she wiped up the sweet, sticky liquid. She looked up at Trevor one more time. He stared back, unblinking.

She barely hesitated before she shoved that thumb into his mouth, climbing into his lap to straddle him as she did. He was paralyzed with surprise, at first, but then he stared back up at her with an expression that was somewhere between dopey and wild. She looked into his face, studied every line, every scar until she settled on the scar on his upper lip that was now wrapped around her finger. He put his hands under the collar of his jacket that she wore, squeezing and rubbing the skin on her shoulders, pulling the jacket down in the process.

“Whatever you're thinking, _stop thinking it_ ,” she said, using his words from earlier against him.

 _“I can't stop,”_ he half-sighed-half-growled, his words slurred by the digit in his mouth. He almost sounded drunk. He wasn't even being suggestive at this point, just honest. It was then that Meadow felt that he had grown hard between her legs. The thought that she had done that to him sent electricity through her and made her heart beat faster. He let his hands drop down to her lower back, just above her ass, his breathing growing more rapid, rocking them against each other ever so slightly. He moved his hands under her skirt to where her thighs met her torso, squeezing eagerly, sending a little shudder through Meadow. His expression had grown more wild, more keen. He was sucking lightly, biting too. He leaned his head back a little, taking her in.

Meadow felt pangs of desire, pangs of regret. She wanted him right then and there, and not in a way that she had wanted other men. She didn't want him to put down the fire in her, she wanted for him to fan it, and she could tell that he would have obliged her, but something held her back. She pulled her thumb from his mouth and took his chin in that hand and pressed her lips to his forehead with moderate force, letting them linger there for a moment before she kissed his head. She took his head in one arm and hugged his head against her breasts. He was breathing hard, now. He smelled like sweat and gunpowder.

“'Til next time, Tiger,” she whispered. She held him for another moment, stroking the back of his head with her finger tips before getting out of the truck and starting toward her house. She stopped to pull the jacket off and throw it at him. She shot him one more glance. He was looking at her from the driver's seat, his head back, looking like he had just had the living shit kicked out of him. She turned back and went into her house.

_There's your spitfire, Trevor Philips._

 

 

 


	7. Recollection

Trevor laid in bed, supine and completely motionless. A lack of movement was not typical of him. He was always itchy to move, go, move, go, with or without a little speed in him. But right now, with his sheep skin-lined denim jacket draped over his face, he didn't dare move for fear that he would lose the scent. That shifting even an inch would make him lose it completely. As it was, he could only smell it every few breaths. It taunted him, drifting into his nostrils on one inhalation and retreating the next, like an annoying fucking nymph dancing in and out of the trees, staying only long enough for you to convince yourself that it was really there.

It was a combination of coconut and girl sweat and clean linens lingering just beneath the smell of car exhaust and whatever grit covered the bottom of the Bodhi. _It was so fucking good._ He was half-torturing himself with it, but he'd already jerked off three times and he still couldn't sleep. Finally, he pulled the jacket off of his face, casting it to the end of the bed.

He got up and went to the fridge to fetch himself a beer. He needed to sleep, to wash the memory of Meadow grinding into his lap away, at least for a night. He wasn't usually such a sentimental shitheel. If he wanted a fuck, he knew where to get one. Hell, he'd even had girlfriends before, women that had done his laundry and cooked for him and fucked his brains out when he was having a bad day. He'd had his heart broken when they decided not to do those things anymore and left. But fuck him if this wasn't something new altogether. Meadow was in his fucking bloodstream right now.

He'd had her for a minute, he did. When she was all shit scared and pleading with her eyes for him to leave her alone. Not that he enjoyed that, but it was familiar at least. With her, though... It was like she had one foot in everyone else's reality but only truly lived in her own. Right now, if you could draw a Venn diagram of her world and Trevor's, you'd see her towing the line in between her circle and that space where the two met, that confusing, fucked up sliver of a reality that was starting to come into focus.

She wasn't even too much of an enigma to him, at least not the way he figured. He was aces at reading people, no matter complicated they fancied themselves to be, and she was a person, after all. She was fickle mostly, scared of everything. But instead of running away when she got scared, she ran straight into it, soaking up the chaos. The only thing that he couldn't figured out was if she liked it or if she was like a machine that didn't give a fuck about any pleasure to be had in a situation. Now she had him running fucking circles, stuck in his own head. He hated her a little for that. Most times, when something pissed him off, he dealt with it forcefully and impulsively, but here he was trying to calculate everything like he was in the middle of a goddamn chess match or something.

Trevor polished off his beer in no time flat and cracked another one open before sitting down on his couch and turning on the T.V. Infomercials usually helped him nod off, eventually. He hoped that when he did, Meadow wouldn't show up in his dreams. With his fucking luck, he would wake up right when they were getting to the good stuff anyway. It had happened when he was jerking off, when he should have had some fucking agency over what was going on in his own fantasy. One minute he had a good thought going and the next, some part of him would shut it down, until finally, he'd had to simply augment the memory of a choice porn with splices of Meadow. Meadow standing in his truck, putting three rounds into the ice chest at the creek, with sweat running down her back. Meadow in his lap with her finger in his mouth, staring him down, daring him to rip her dress off and put one of those gorgeous little tits in his mouth instead. Meadow cocking her head at him as if to say _Is that all you got, Tiger?_

_Goddamn it, Kitten._

 

Meadow spent the next four days in her house with the curtains drawn tight. After her night with Trevor, she had woken up to pesky thoughts about the guy that she had killed creeping into her mind. She had repressed a lot of them so that she could deal with Trevor, who sent her into a flurry of thoughts that only he could, but now those material concerns were back with an ugly vengeance.

First, she remembered that based on what her victim had said to the Latin American woman, he was in law enforcement. Now, she wasn't sure how tight knit Blaine County's finest were, but if they were like most small town dirty cops, she might have a serious problem on her hands if they came knocking.

Second, she had left a witness. A witness that could identify her to the cops if she was so inclined. Meadow doubted if she would, especially if what the cop said was true about her immigration status, but what if the cops knew her and they got their hooks into her? Why in the hell wouldn't she throw Meadow under the bus to save her own skin? Most undocumented people that Meadow knew were well-aware of how awful the detention facilities for South American immigrants were and Meadow couldn't blame someone for trying to save themselves from a place like that.

These new anxieties and paranoia about what would come of the whole mess turned Meadow, who had had crippling claustrophobia for as long as she could remember and was given to serious bouts of cabin fever, into a bona fide agoraphobic wreck for those four days. She spent her days watching bad T.V. and reading the small cache of books that she had brought with her. When she wasn't doing that, she tried to distract herself by doing pushups, situps, planks, anything that would keep her mind on her body and nothing else. She even tried to take her mind off of it by attempting to invent some new recipes, but had to stop because there was too much food for her to eat in one sitting and she realized that that routine meal preparation was another precious distraction that she could seldom afford to sacrifice.

Finally, on the fourth day, exhausted from fighting off the fear, she collapsed onto her bed and tried to shut her eyes, beckoning sleep forth. Of course, the sleep would not come and after tossing and turning, trying to reason and bargain with sleep, she sat up on the bed, defeated. Her eyes fell onto the dresser, where she saw the envelope of photographs from her godmother, Naida. She crawled out of bed and fetched the envelope before seating herself on the bed again. She pulled the note from Naida out of the envelope and stared at the words before she allowed herself to read and comprehend them for the umpteenth time.

Naida had been the only mother that she had known since she was seven years old. She had been the best friend of her biological mother. Meadow would only learn that it was her mother's express wish that she be turned over into Naida's care in the event of her mother being “incapacitated” (or more specifically, captured by fiendish mobsters) when she stood hand-in-hand with a nameless social worker in the Los Santos Division of Youth Services building one week after her mother was taken. It was Naida showed up and scooped Meadow into her arms, the first gesture of affection that Meadow had experienced in that entire hellish week. It was Naida who took Meadow back to her little adobe bungalow in Murietta Heights, and it was Naida who stroked Meadow's head, singing her songs in Spanish until she fell asleep that night. It was Naida who raised Meadow alongside her own son, Ignacio, who was Meadow's age, for the next eleven years.

Meadow felt wretched when she read these words. She felt selfish and shitty because she couldn't even allow herself to devise a way to reach out to her surrogate mother after she became involved with Badger. Meadow had met Badger when he visited the E.R., where Meadow was working, for pain from his nerve condition. She had smuggled him the medication that he requested, the only thing that worked for his condition. She had felt compelled to do so when the attending physician had opted to medicate Badger with painkillers that they had gotten from a pharma rep only weeks earlier. He had doled them out like candy every since for every complaint under the sun, so Meadow had clandestinely handed Badger the right pills, (after doing some brief research on his condition and known treatments) telling him that he knew his body better than the attending or his HMO.

That decision had been the impetus for Badger contacting Meadow a few weeks later with a business proposition. And that set her on a path that she had been hesitant to follow, but that she had followed anyway. That path made it so that she couldn't face Naida, and Meadow's visits to Murietta Heights gradually became scarcer and scarcer. Now it had been seven months since they had spoken and Meadow was sick with guilt at how worried she must have had the only mother she had ever known.

Meadow almost retched at the guilt that she felt thinking about it. She tossed the envelope aside and laid back down to try to get her nausea to subside. She couldn't make the thoughts go away. They kept coming down on her head, bringing waves of nausea with them. She set about doing that thing she did, making maps and time-lines and diagrams in her head, trying to figure out how she got here even though she already knew. The thought exercise was the confused bastard child of self-torment and self-soothing. Meadow almost always broke even, psychologically speaking, when she did this. She thought about her mother, about Naida and Ignacio, about her fellow service members and commanding officers in the Navy, about Badger. She drew little webs among them with imaginary string and thumb tacks, like you see on the bulletin boards in squad rooms in shitty crime shows. They lay out all the elements of the crime, trying to draw connections, waiting for an _a ha_ moment. Meadow made all the connections again and they were the same as they always were.

This was when Trevor came into her mind. Trevor did not fit into the web. Trevor was a web unto himself. A messy, sticky web. She thought about that night four days ago. That night that she was pressed against him, invading his mouth with her finger, trying to devour him while leaving him in tact, keeping him at arms length. How she had wanted him so bad that it had set her atoms abuzz, screaming at her to do what she wanted to do, that thing that had kept the species going, that had brought great people and atrocious people and mediocre people into the world. That thing that people do when they are in love or when they are in lust or when they are bored or when they can't feel. _Don't ask why. There is no why._

She thought about his brown eyes looking up at her, burning into her, drawing her in like a moth to flame. Those eyes that made her feel like she did when she was a kid watching a scary movie, wanting to look away, but loving the thrill that came from powering through the scariest bits. She could look into those eyes for hours, letting her tummy and her heart do tumbles all over the place. Thoughts of the crazy man raged through her mind like wildfire for what could have been forever, in that place between waking life and sleep. Meadow dozed off in the company of those thoughts. It was anyone's guess how long she'd been sleeping before she was startled awake by someone kicking in her front door.


	8. Reckoning

Trevor was on the couch watching _Impotent Rage_ when Ron came into the trailer, flustered and excited. His back was hunched and his legs were bowed they way they always were when he was nervous. His face was ruddy. Trevor glared up at him. He'd had a long day over at the lab with Chef, hauling in more bunsen burners, fuel, and cases of pseudophedrine that he'd requisitioned from a truck on the Senora Highway that morning. The last thing he needed was to listen to Ron ramble on about his latest pet theory regarding the shadow government.

“What now, Ron? Have the lizard people sloughed off their human skin? Are they readying for takeover,” Trevor said sarcastically.

Ron ignored the facetious comment and tried to catch his breath, but had to speak through labored breaths anyway.

“The Aztecas, boss! They were just over at Meadow's! I noticed them right as they were putting her in the back of the van! They headed east! I-I got here as fast as I could,” Ron exclaimed.

Trevor shot up to his feet.

“What the fuck do the Aztecas want with her,” he shouted as he immediately walked stiff-legged into his closet and set about preparing a cache of weapons, ready for a fire fight. He pulled out his grenades, a carbine rifle, an assault rifle, placing them all into an army duffle. He stuck a pistol in the waist of his pants. The Aztecas were hardly strangers to Trevor. Fucking with them had been a hobby of his ever since he'd caught wind of their gun-smuggling operation. He'd put down more than a few of them, but now they had Meadow and he needed to act fast. They might have been largely worthless, but he knew that they were capable of malice.

“I dunno, Trevor, but she didn't go with them of her own volition, they were definitely pulling a kidnap on her! They headed east, it's anyone's guess where they're taking her! If we go now, we might be able to catch up to them!”

“We? You're coming with,” Trevor asked, disinterested, as he headed out the door toward his truck. Ron followed close behind. “I can help Trevor! I can identify the vehicle if I see it!”

“Get back in there and grab my SMG, I know you can handle that one,” Trevor barked. Ron gulped at the prospect of taking an active part in a fire fight, but he knew better than to argue with Trevor when he was all riled up. He ran back into the trailer, briskly, and grabbed the gun from the closet before running back outside as fast as his shaking legs would take him. The Bodhi was already running and Trevor was gripping the steering wheel, ready to peel out as soon as his passenger entered. Ron hopped in, not bothering to open the door and just about broke his jaw on the gear shift. Trevor either didn't notice or didn't care and gunned it. With that, the two men shot out into the darkness, in search of the van that had carried Meadow away.

 

Meadow sat in the dank cinder-block structure trying in vain to wriggle her wrists free of the duct tape that held them together in front of her. She was seated in a cheap vinyl lawn chair in the center of the room directly under an ugly fluorescent pendant light that bathed most of the largely empty gray room in a sickening yellow-green color. Her torso was duct-taped to the back of the chair. The man keeping watch over her in a dark corner of the room spoke up suddenly.

“Don't try to get out of your restraints, _puta_. You're going nowhere,” he said.

She glared in his direction, only making out his shadow. _As if she didn't know that_. She just didn't want any more circulation cut off. She was cold and shivering as it was. Just then, two more men walked in.

One guy was short and stocky and wore a white muscle shirt. He was the one that she had seen first when they stormed her bedroom. The other guy was taller and more lanky, but was still intimidating with his thin moustache. He stared down his nose at her, though she could hardly see him as the top part of his face was silhouetted in darkness, the low hanging pendant light illuminating only his straight mouth.

“Luis has given us the go ahead to do with her as we see fit _after_ she tell us who she is,” the tall guy said in Spanish, presumably to the man that had been standing watch over her. Meadow shuddered at this. Her Spanish wasn't stellar but she could understand menace in any language. The tall man started toward her.

“What's the matter, _flaca_? Are you disappointed that you can't stomp our heads in with your little foot?” Meadow stared up at him and watched as he brought his face just inches from hers. It was then that she noticed the toothpick hanging out of his mouth. When he was good and eye-level, he spit it at her. She flinched. The toothpick hit her in the face and then rolled into her lap. She followed it down and then looked up at her captor again. “Do you know who we are, _little girl_? Do you have any idea what you have done?”

Meadow sighed, finally deciding to speak with the shallow hope that it would humanize her enough to where they wouldn't do anything heavy like drive needles under her fingernails or something. “I know who you are but I don't know what you or _Luis_ want from me,” she said as calmly as she could. The man with the moustache turned his head toward his brethren, smirking and nodding his head.

“You hear that boys? She doesn't know what we want from her. Let's educate her, shall we?” His brothers laughed. One of them said “That's a job for you, Manuel.” The guy, who Meadow now knew was Manuel, turned back to her.

“See, our girl, Marcella, she saw what you did to that Sheriff's deputy and she came running back here, telling us some wild story about some little blonde busting in his head. We didn't believe her at first, but then we didn't hear from that deputy for three days,” he said holding up three fingers in her face to make his point. “And that's bad news for you 'cause that guy you killed? He was our, uh, shall we say...Safety net. He kept the rest of the Sheriff's office off of our asses while we ran guns and we cut him in. That's how we do business.” His face grew more menacing. “Well, that was how we did business before some little _bitch_ had to go and fuck it up.” He stood up and began pacing in front of her, slowly, the way you might see a panther pacing the length of his zoo enclosure. “And that little _bitch_ wasn't hard to find because she sticks out like a sore thumb in this little shit hole, Sandy Shores.” He gestured outwardly with his hands. "Even among all the hipster weirdos moving out here, she's pretty obvious.”

Meadow was getting itchy now. She hated this windowless room, she hated florescent lights, she hated the three pricks that were in here with her, she hated this asshole's misogynist slurs, she hated being talked about in the third person, and she hated being compared to hipsters. Most of all, though, she hated herself for the uncharacteristic stupidity that had landed her in the situation. It was all that impulsiveness that invaded her mind, that strange new part of her that was slowly choking out her normal, rational side the way viney plants tend smother everything around them. That rational side was failing even now as she opened her mouth to speak.

“Your cop buddy was fixing to cut that lady's nose off. And if she's your girl, Marcella, maybe you shouldn't have sent her to tell that cop that you were going to fuck him out of his cut of your gun money, you spineless fucks,” she spat. It wasn't two seconds before she felt the back of Manuel's hand across her face. He got her in the side of the jaw. It hurt like a motherfucker. Meadow had been clocked before, but plainly this guy didn't like his cowardice laid bare for him to see. Meadow opened her jaw as wide as she could on instinct. She thought fast. It wasn't broken and that gave her some relief as she might need to be able to scream later, assuming that they weren't going to put a bullet in her head right now.

“Alright, Goldilocks. Who the fuck are you,” Manuel screamed. “And you better answer me straight or I will make you wish that that cop had gotten his blade into you before you fell into my hands!”

Meadow was still moving her jaw back and forth, so she didn't answer him. He slapped her across the face again, this time just getting her cheek. But the force was enough that she was dazed and it might have been the delirium from the hit that caused her to start chuckling, soft and low at first but building toward a crescendo. She looked up at him, her smile a little crooked from getting hit twice.

“I'm fucking _Goldilocks_ , motherfucker. And you bitches are my three bears,” she said before throwing her head back and laughing maniacally, her jaw still a little sore.

Meadow was thinking clearly enough to know that her strange little outburst was likely attributable to an extreme stress response, but it still frightened her a little bit. She knew that she was irking them and that she wasn't in the best spot to leverage her way out of it. Manuel turned to the other two men.

“Get the car ready. We're taking her out of here and we're shooting her ass. If she won't tell us who she is, we'll find her known associates and figure out what she knows and who else we gotta deal with.”

Clearly, this guy did not get the memo that Meadow acted in defense of herself and Marcella. Call it denial, call it whatever you want but in that moment, she wasn't all that worried about her impending doom, choosing instead to focus on how ungrateful these Azteca shit bags were.

The two other men walked toward Meadow, one gripped her shoulder tight while the other cut the duct-tape off of her torso and wrists. Each man lifted her up by an arm and when she was steady on her feet, they began to march her toward the door. Meadow was still in pain from getting hit in the face but she was mostly numb, noting how nice the night air was compared to in that stale little building once they emerged. They walked her toward an old black sedan that was waiting for them. Manuel was several steps ahead of them. He walked to the back of the car and opened the trunk. And when Meadow saw that, it only took her a second to comprehend why he had opened the trunk. She peered at it, her stomach doing a sudden flip, her eyes growing wide and wild. That's when Meadow lost her cool. Her body went stiff and that motion stopped her and the men that flanked her dead in their tracks.

“ _No_...No, no, no! Don't put me in there,” she said, unable to hide her fear. The men pulled at her, each of them now gripping her arms with both sets of hands, pulling her stubborn body forward, dragging her bare feet through the dirt and gravel on the ground. “Get the fuck off of me,” Meadow screamed. She was flailing wildly now. “I'll be good, I promise, I'll be quiet,” she pleaded. “Don't put me in the trunk, please! _Lo siento_ , I'll do whatever you want, please, don't put me in there!” She was bawling now. She had completely lost her composure in the span of about ten seconds. Manuel's laughter was jarring, stopping the other two men in their tracks, even as Meadow struggled against them.

“What's the matter, _pendeja_? You're fine getting getting slapped around, but you're afraid of the trunk?” He laughed even more. Soon, he was joined by the other two, the three of them forming a chorus of tormenting cackling. “Get her in there,” Manuel demanded when the laughter subsided. The short guy grabbed Meadow, but she was able to wrestle him away, only for a moment before the other guy grabbed her from behind, his arms encircling her upper body. Still, she fought and kicked until the shorter guy grabbed her legs. Meadow was wailing and sobbing now, petrified. She didn't have the strength to fight the two men off, though she tried, even as they placed her in the trunk of the car and slammed the door shut.

_“Wake up, baby!”_

_The voice of her mother, broke through the sweet haze of Meadow's dream, a dream about boats and the ocean and dolphins in all the colors of the rainbow dancing on the surface of the water, beckoning Meadow to join them. Her eyes fluttered open._

_“Up, up, up!” Meadow could make out her mother's long, blonde hair in the darkness, her nightlight the only source of illumination in the little room. Meadow sleepily reached over toward her bedside table lamp, the one with the little cartoon fish painted on it. Her mothers hand caught her arm.  
_

_"No, baby, we have leave the light off,” Elin said before she scooped Meadow up in her arms.  
_

_"Mama,” Meadow said, her voice still scratchy with sleep. She carried Meadow to the window, careful to keep Meadow to the side of it, away from the glass._

_“Shit!”_

_“Mama, what's happening,” Meadow said, more alert now._

_“Nothing, baby, it's okay,” replied Elin. Meadow looked up at her. She saw fright in her mother's face. The fright disappeared as soon as Elin looked down at her daughter. She broke into a smile, though it was a thin one._

_“We're going to play a game. I need you to listen to me very closely,” she said, carrying Meadow out into the hallway and then into her own bedroom._

_She put Meadow down. Right as she did, two sets of headlights moved across the walls of the darkened room. Meadow jumped._

_“Mama, who's here?” Elin knelt down and looked her daughter in the face and spoke, trying to hide the tension in her voice. She spoke sweetly to her daughter.  
_

_"Remember the butterflies?” Meadow cocked her head at her mother._

_“What?”_

_“Remember butterflies? We read about them the other day? They don't start out as butterflies, they're caterpillars, first, right?”_

_“Yeah,” Meadow replied. Elin smiled at Meadow again._

_“Well you're a little caterpillar and you're going to go in there,” she said motioning to a costume trunk hidden in the corner by the oak wardrobe. “That's your cocoon, baby. And you're going to be very quiet. You're not going to make a peep.”_

_There were sounds coming from down stairs. Loud thuds. Someone was trying to break down the door. Both of them flinched at the noise, but Elin jerked her daughter's head back toward her, forcing her to look her in the eye. She was panting a little bit, still trying to hide her fear from the little girl._

_“You need to be very quiet. No crying, no screaming. You're going to hear some scary noises, but don't you dare come out of there until I tell you, okay?” Meadow nodded. Elin stroked her cheek and kissed her on the head. “When you come out, you're going to be a butterfly, baby.” She got up and led Meadow to the trunk. The noises were louder now. One last great big thud before they could hear footsteps and men's voices. Elin lifted Meadow into the trunk and put a finger to her lips, signaling for Meadow to be quiet. She pushed her down gently and closed the trunk._

_Meadow lay there, her heart beating so hard that she could hear it in her ears. She covered her ears but it made it louder. She wanted to cry out to her mother, but she remembered what her mother said. She had to be quiet, so she covered her mouth with her hand. She kept it covered, pressing her hand as hard into her mouth and nose as she could as the footsteps reached the room. She kept her hand there even when she heard her mother scream, even when she heard a loud thud on the floor. She kept her mouth covered when she heard the men dragging her mother across the floor, out of the room, down the stairs, and out the door. She kept her mouth covered even when she heard nothing, but the sound of her own hard breathing._

Trevor and Ron tore down the dirt road toward Senora National Park. They were running out of road and Trevor was running out of patience.

“Goddammit, Ron, you're supposed to be the eyes and ears of this place and you can't even fucking tell me where those fucks take people to maim them,” Trevor said through gritted teeth.

“I know that they've got to be around here somewhere, Trevor. We'll find them,” Ron said. They were getting near the park. “Take this road until you get to Smoke Tree Road. I see them out by the scrapyard all the time,” said Ron.

Trevor was practically shaking with a combination of panic and anger at the whole debacle. First, Kitten had to go and get herself kidnapped by those fucking fucks and then he was faced with Ron's paper-thin intel stream. What the hell was he good for if not for mapping out every single crevice occupied by their rivals? They'd been driving for twenty five minutes and there wasn't a van in sight. They arrived at Smoke Tree Road.

“Which way, Ronald,” Trevor asked, eyeing Cat Claw Ave.

“Go southeast, Trevor, stay off the road. They'll be somewhere back around the scrapyard, by the edge of the freeway,” Ron said. Ron was surprisingly calm now, having shaken off some of the adrenaline that had him practically bouncing in his seat moments before. They saw a van, suddenly, a dusty old yellow thing. “That's it, Trevor!”

They pulled up next to the van, which was parked outside of an old dispatch building made of cinder blocks. Trevor hopped out of the car and ran to the van, assault rifle poised to meet any adversaries. He looked inside. It was abandoned. He didn't hesitate before running to the solitary door of the dispatch building and kicking in the door. The light was still on inside. Trevor took a step in and looked around the small room. It was sparse, save for a vinyl chair in the center of the room. It had duct tape hanging off the side. _They definitely had her here_. Trevor turned on his heel and headed out toward the truck. Ron stood up on his seat.

“What's it look like, boss,” asked Ron, wearing a concerned expression.

“They're not here, but they were and we can't be too far behind 'em,” Trevor replied as he got into the driver's side of the Bodhi and started the engine. He sighed. _Fuck knows where they took her_ , he thought. Trevor was frustrated. He sighed deeply, silently cursing the Aztecas while trying to think about where else to look.

Ron gasped suddenly and pointed southeast at a pair of headlights bobbing up and down about a quarter mile ahead of them. Trevor immediately gunned it toward the headlights. It had to be them. It didn't take long for Trevor to close the distance between them, the headlights growing in size and brightness in a matter of a couple of minutes. It was a black sedan. They got close enough to make out three heads in the car before they were made. The sedan sped up. _Challenge accepted_ , thought Trevor.

The Bodhi might have been a clunky old relic, but it was made for this type of terrain. The little sedan didn't have shit on the Bodhi's off-road capabilities and Trevor relished that fact as he sped up to meet them. He inched alongside them. Ron spoke up.

“Those are Aztecas alright!”

“And they're fucking dead if they laid a finger on that Meadow,” Trevor said, the rage boiling up inside of him, drowning out his dread at the prospect of finding Meadow murdered.

Trevor hung back as the two passengers began shooting at the Bodhi. Both Ron and Trevor returned fire, prompting the driver of the sedan to crank the car right. Trevor responded in kind by cranking the wheels of the Bodhi to match, inching up on the hind end of the car. He was too close to the rear tires to shoot one out and he could hardly make out the front ones, but he fired at the front driver's side with his pistol anyway. He missed but didn't hesitate before firing a second shot that sent the sedan spinning out, finally resting about five yards from the Bodhi. Trevor put the pistol down and grabbed the assault rifle from beside him. He got out of the car.

“Stay here, Ron.”

He took cover from the fire that quickly beset him from the Aztecas. He returned fire. He heard the doors to the sedan open. One, two, three. It was good enough for him. He left cover and quickly put one into each of the passenger's heads. He could hear their bodies hitting the dirt when he was met with more fire from the remaining kidnapping dirtbag. He returned to cover and quickly calculated his next move. He couldn't kill this motherfucker until he got what, or rather who he had come for.

Trevor stood up from where he was crouched and fired at the last guy, presumably the driver. He hit him square in the shoulder. He saw the man grimace in his headlights, letting out a scream. He wasted no time before he made his way over to the driver's side of the car, where the target had fallen. He kicked the man's gun away and trained his own at his head. The man was long and lean and had a moustache.

“Where the fuck is she,” Trevor spat at the man at his feet.

He was bleeding profusely, hissing in pain, shaking so badly that he couldn't hold his shoulder. The bullet had passed through him.

“I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, man,” the man said through his teeth, gritted in pain.

“Bull-fucking-shit,” Trevor said, giving the guy a kick, which sent him into another bout of hissing.

“Where the fuck did you put her.”

“Who, _pendeja_?” The motherfucker was laughing, suddenly. “She's probably dead by now.”

Trevor stood up straighter. He was seething silently, ready to shoot this buy in his fucking nards if he didn't give Meadow up now, when all of a sudden, past the sound of the fallen man's heavy breathing, Trevor heard something. It was faint, but it was there. A voice. Distinctly female. Trevor glanced into the man's eyes once more, just to take in his fear, for his own satisfaction before he put one between the guy's eyes.

“Kitten,” he shouted, making his way to the side of the sedan, looking into the windows but finding no one. He heard the voice again. It was high-pitched, but still quiet. The sounds were uneven. It was coming from the trunk. He ran to the driver's side and opened it, pulling the lever to pop the trunk, which was so old and hinky that it rocked the car, before running to the back of the car. He stared into the trunk. It was dark and he could barely make out any shapes, but he heard that voice again. It was breathy and frantic, clearer now.

“Metacarpal, trapeze, trapezium, capitate, scaphold...”

“Kitten!”

It got quiet then. He leaned it, trying to see her, to make sure that she hadn't broken anything before he tried to move her. He saw something poke out of the trunk and into the moonlight, and that's when he could see her. The look on her face could only be described as catatonic. She didn't look at Trevor, but stared outward. Her eyes were huge and wet, shiny tear-slicks pooled beneath them. Her jaw was slack. She had a bleeding cut on her forehead. She pulled herself up further. She shivered and shuddered, in between heaving breaths, muttering something inaudible.

“Kitten,” Trevor repeated as he moved closer...

The speed with which she shot out of the trunk and went running into the night was incomprehensible. She was so fast that Trevor did a double take between the woman, who was rapidly disappearing, and the trunk before he ran after her. The Bodhi's headlights quickly lost her to the dark.

“Meadow,” he shouted. “Stop!”

He ran after her, occasionally losing sight of her in the shadows of the hills and the cacti before she would reappear in the moonlight.

“It's me! Stop fucking running!” His heart rate shot up to one hundred and seventy beats per minute before he realized it, but he kept going. _Are you fucking kidding me_ , he thought to himself.

“Goddammit, woman, you're going to kill me, now stop running!” He continued to follow her figure with his eyes for as long as he could, the fast movement making it difficult for him to lock onto her.

His heart was pounding in his ears, his feet thudding on the ground. They must have run for half a mile before he heard a yelp just fifteen yards ahead. He slowed his pace and squinted ahead, trying to see anything when he made out a figure on the ground, the tell-tale blonde hair sticking out of the brush. He jogged over to her.

She was breathing hard, wincing and crying out. He knelt down. “Christ, woman,” he panted. She looked up at him, eyes still wide. Then she squinted. She was panting too. Her hair was a mess. There were bits of foliage sticking out of it. She cocked her head at him.

“Tiger,” she whimpered.

He crawled closer to her, trying to catch her in the moonlight to see what kind of shape she was in.

“Yeah, baby, it's Tiger,” he said, still breathless.

She looked up at him, her face disclosing a mixture of relief and pleading. Trevor put his hand on the back of her head and stared right back. He was so fucking relieved to have her here and alive and now he was looking at her, wishing he could drink her in, to absorb her into himself so that nobody could ever hurt her again.

“What did you get yourself into this time, Kitten,” he asked rhetorically, his breathing slowing a little now.

“A fucking rabbit snare,” she said through a dry sob. She winced in pain.

Trevor raised his eyebrows at this confusing metaphor. “Okay,” he said after a second, nodding his head. “Yeah, I guess that's one way of looking at it.”

“No,” she barked. She pointed down toward her foot. “There's something on me, I think it's a rabbit snare,” she said.

Trevor followed her eyes to her foot. He crawled down to have a look. She was right. There was a piece of wire looped tight around her ankle, tethered to a stick in the ground.

“Fucking hillbillies,” he said under his breath.

He looked at her feet. They were bare and dirty and bloodied. The wire had cut into her ankle a little bit, but it was hard to see how deep it was. He held her leg up for her so that the wire had some give before he slipped it over her foot. She whimpered as he did this. He looked up at her.

She was sitting up now, but still shaking. He crawled on his knees back up to her. He cupped the side of her face in one of his hands, stroking her cheek with his thumb.

“You're getting into all sorts of shit lately, aren't you kid,” he said.

She closed her eyes and smiled faintly leaning into his touch.

“Yeah,” she replied with a weak laugh. “I'm a walking fucking disaster.”

Trevor smiled, relieved that she seemed to have come back to him from whatever dark place she had been in that had given her bionic legs a few minutes ago.

“We need to get you home. You're staying at my place,” he told her. She didn't protest, to his relief. He was really tired of giving chase.

He got his feet under him and leaned over, pulling her up to her feet by her shoulders. Her legs gave under her and he caught her before she fell back into the dirt. He held her up and she leaned into him, too weak to stand on her own. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed Ron's number.

Ron pulled up in the Bodhi barely a minute after they got off of the phone. Trevor lifted Meadow into his arms and carried her to the truck. She had absolutely no wind left in her sails now and could barely stand. He slid into the passenger's seat with her in his lap. She was shivering a little, her face buried in his neck, arms tucked between their bodies. He tried to cover her as best as he could, but she only had on a t-shirt and shorts.

“She okay,” Ron asked, concerned.

“Yeah, yeah, I think she'll be alright,” Trevor said. “We're taking her back to the trailer, though. There's no fucking way she's staying alone until I know they're not sending someone else after her.”

Ron began driving, stealing glances at Meadow, his face still distorted with worry.

Trevor started picking bits of foliage out of Meadow's hair, which was matted to her head with sweat in some parts and tangled in others. He looked down at her legs, covered in dirt and bruises and her feet, which were ripped up from her little bionic barefoot run through the desert. He wanted to be mad at her, to tell her that she was a fucking dingbat pulling a black cloud around with her like a goddamn balloon on a string, but it was hard to do with her in his arms, pressed into him like that. He could feel her soft little breaths on his neck.

 _This woman is going to fucking kill me_ , he thought to himself.

 

 

The hot water burned the open wounds that Meadow was sporting, but it felt so good to get all that dirt off of her. She watched as the blood and dirt circled the shower drain and it was a welcome sight. She had to lean against the shower wall and wash herself with one hand as her legs still hadn't returned to her completely, but this was still among the top five showers of her adult life.

She had scratched Ron off of her shit list and had told him as much in so many words. God knew he deserved that and a medal of valor for scavenging her house for her “chick stuff” as Trevor had dubbed her bath products and cosmetics and clothes. All she had really wanted was her jump bag full of medical supplies. Now she washed off the lather from all the bath products and savored the feeling of the water.

“You still doing okay in there,” Trevor asked from the other side of the shower door.

He had asked her if she needed help and she had said yes as she couldn't deny that falling in the shower was a possibility.

“Yes, Tiger. I'm done,” she said, giving herself another ten seconds under the water. She turned the handle, cutting off the water supply. Trevor dutifully handed her a towel over the door. She swiped it over her head first to dry her hair before moving on to her face and shoulders. She wrapped the towel around her torso, figuring that she would be dry soon enough. She opened the door and Trevor stuck his hand in. She took it and he helped her out of the shower.

They walked out into the living room and sat next to each other on the couch. He took her face in his hands and looked at the cut on her forehead before looking over the rest of her. She watched him swallow as he did.

“You don't look so bad now,” he said. “I guess showering off all that dirt and blood kind of takes the piss out of being a badass.”

Meadow cocked her head at him and smiled. “Tiger,” she whispered in response to the jab. She was sleepy and she could tell that that hadn't escaped him.

“Okay, okay,” he said, trying to hurry the little physical exam along. “Head's good, cut's not too deep. We can't do anything about the bruises.” He placed his finger under her chin and looked at the bruises under her cheek bone. By some miracle, Meadows face wasn't swollen from the beating that she took. “Did that happen in the car,” he asked. Meadow almost flinched at the mention of that _car ride_.

“No,” she said. Trevor's eyes grew dark. His jaw was clenched.

“One of those motherfuckers clocked you,” he asked, his voice steeped in anger. Meadow reflexively grabbed his wrist and looked him in the eyes.

“I'm okay,” she whispered. His eyes seemed to soften when she said this.

“Okay. Anything under that towel that we should be concerned about,” he asked. It was actually an honest question, but it made Meadow's lips curl into a mischievous smile. She was so relieved to be alive and so grateful to Trevor for keeping her that way that she couldn't help but feel a little giddy and she decided to own that by laughing at the fact that his own innuendo had escaped one of the most lecherous men alive. He looked back at her and returned the smile. “I'll take that as a _to be determined at a later date_ , hopefully not too much later,” Trevor quipped. Meadow giggled.

He pulled her right leg up to look at her ankle. “I think that this might be the worst of it. How bad does it hurt,” he asked.

“It's not too bad. It doesn't feel like it got the tendons or anything. It's worse in the front,” said Meadow. Trevor reached into the jump bag and pulled out two bottles. He held them up for Meadow's approval, one at a time.

“A or B,” he said.

“A,” she replied indicating that she wanted the first-aid cleanser in his right hand.

She had to show him how to do first aid as his training consisted of pulling out bullets and suturing under extreme and unsanitary circumstances. He threw the other stuff back in the bag before he swabbed her ankle with a cotton ball doused in the cleanser. Meadow tried to hold still, but wriggled a little in pain.

“Hold still,” Trevor said without looking up.

“I'm trying,” Meadow said defensively. “That's a sensitive spot.”

Trevor wrapped up by applying the cleansing solution to the spots on her feet that were cut up. They weren't nearly as bad as her ankles, but he was doing his due diligence. Meadow thought that that was sweet. She guided him through the process of dressing her ankle in gauze. Really, all she had to do was tell him to tighten it. _He could have been an EMT_ , Meadow thought to herself, but quickly remembered who was in front of her. When he was done, he patted her foot that was in his lap and looked up at her. She moved her foot so that he could get up.

Meadow was completely dry now, save for her damp hair. Trevor walked to the fridge and opened it. Meadow pulled out a pair of underwear from her bag of clothes and slipped them on under the towel. That caught Trevor off-guard. He stood at the fridge staring at her, absently reaching in for a beer. Meadow ignored his stare and turned her back to him. She pulled the towel down and slipped on a bra, still feeling his eyes on her. She reached into the bag of clothes that Ron had brought looking for a sleep shirt. She liked to sleep in over-sized t-shirts cut into muscle shirts and she hoped that she would find at least one. She quickly grew frustrated at being unable to find it and stood up, hobbling to face the couch. She pulled garments out and put them back in repeatedly, not finding what she was looking for. Finally, having burrowed to the bottom of the bag, she withdrew one. She stood up to put it on and that's when she saw Trevor out of the corner of her eye.

He was staring at her body, with his hand on his forehead as though he was taking his own temperature. The look in his eye frightened Meadow a little bit. It was a vacant stare. He never looked like that. What was going on behind his eyes might have always been scary, but at least something was going on. Meadow quickly pulled her shirt on, but she still felt vulnerable under his gaze. She stood up straight, looking at him looking at her and waited for him to say something. He cracked the beer and took a sip. Finally, after what seemed like minutes, he looked into her eyes and spoke.

“What scared you back there,” he asked. Meadow pulled her hair out from under the collar of her shirt.

“What?”

“When I pulled opened the trunk of the car, you weren't there,” he said flatly. “Where were you,” he asked again sounding more serious.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Meadow lied. She started sorting her stuff on the couch, avoiding his eyes. She didn't want to go there with him. Not now. Not after everything that had happened.

In fact, Trevor was right. She was missing some pieces. For as much as she had been smiling and joking, there was something under the surface, residue from what had happened just a couple of hours earlier.

She remembered them shutting the trunk on her, the sound of the engine, the smell of exhaust. She remembered her panic rising at being closed in. How her rationality had abandoned her completely. How she wanted nothing more than to be outside in open air. That's when she blacked out. Perhaps time traveled was more accurate. Because it happened every time, _every fucking time_. She wasn't afraid of bacteria, of snakes, of air travel. Those things were a fucking cake walk as far as she was concerned. But every time she was confined, she was dipping a toe into hell, into her past, and she hated to admit it, but that hell was the only place where she had to go to visit her mother.

She remembered running, feeling her feet on the ground, the air on her skin. That's when she kind of came back, just a minute before she fell into the rabbit trap.

Trevor advanced on her, softly, but it made her jump. He grabbed her lightly by the shoulders and turned her toward him. She dropped her stuff on the couch and complied with the motion. She could feel the cold beer on her shoulder.

“Don't lie to me, Kitten,” he demanded. “You and I are past that. Now tell me, what the fuck is it that scares you. I need to know.”

Meadow had tears in her eyes now. They came on suddenly, streaming down her face. She felt so naked right now. She wanted to hit him.

“I don't-,” she started.

“No,” he shouted. He let go of her shoulders and began pacing a little bit, still keeping a tight perimeter around her. “You killed people for a living. You stomped someone to death. You fucking flirt with disaster every chance you get and you're still standing, but back there,” he gestured east with his hand, “I didn't know who you were. You were like a...a shell.”

His eyes were burning now. He continued to pace for a moment before stopping. He looked up at Meadow. She slowly wiped the tears from her eyes. She looked back at him, biting her lip. Finally, his shoulders slumped over a bit, signaling some kind of defeat. He held his hands up.

“Fine,” he practically spat. “You don't want to tell me, that's just _fucking_ -”

Meadow grabbed his hand as he started turning away. He jerked around reflexively and the centrifugal force sent her colliding into him. Right where she wanted to be. She let herself linger there a moment, just pressing against him before she grabbed the back of his head and pulled his face to hers, planting a dry kiss on his mouth, holding there for a moment before pulling back. She looked into his eyes.

“It's small spaces, Tiger. That's what scares me, I'm claustrophobic,” she replied, never taking her eyes off of his. “My mother was murdered when I was a kid...She knew they were coming...They were some guys that were pissed at my dad. And before they came, she put me in a trunk so that they wouldn't find me...They found her and took her, but they didn't find me...And...I was in there for ten hours before the cops came. When they put me in the trunk of the car...It took me back there.”

And then she held her breath, waiting for him to react.

His eyes fluttered at her a bit. He pursed his lips, still looking a little bit angry, but more so sad. He nodded in understanding. He put his arm around her middle and pulled her in before taking her face in his hands. He looked deep into her eyes and kissed her again. He pulled away, but stared at her intently. He pointed a jouncing finger at her.

“Don't go anywhere, baby. Don't leave this trailer, okay,” he said before turning around and walking out the door.

Meadow was dumbstruck. She picked Trevor's beer bottle up off the floor. He'd dropped it when she kissed him. Picking it up was the only thing she could think to do. She sat on the couch staring at the door before she heard the door the truck open, the engine starting, and Trevor driving away.


	9. Escape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how I feel about this chapter. I hope it's not too uneven. I didn't re-read it before I posted...So, another thing...it gets smutty here. You've been warned, sensitive readers. Calloused readers, do enjoy ;)

Trevor's knuckles gripped the steering wheel for the second time that night, except this time, there was less anxiety and more rage behind it. He wove in and out of the sparse traffic to reach his destination, narrowly avoiding a few coyotes that would have been wedged in his wheel well if he hadn't swerved at the last minute.  
Meadow had done it again. She'd turned him inside out and he felt like one big raw nerve. Every time he felt like he was figuring shit out, she had to turn around and surprise him. Despite all the guarding, the touching, and now the kissing, he was who he was and he wasn't too keen on the idea of going all wimpy for some doe-eyed babe, no matter how much he wanted to get his hands on her. He only knew how to be who he was, and up to this point, he had been perfectly content confirming people's biases and assumptions toward him. It never bothered him before and he didn't need a fucking do over.

He realized now how wrong he had been about her past. It wasn't as though he had been all that interested in it. He was part of her present now in whatever way, so it didn't really matter to him. But he had been operating under the tacit assumption that Meadow, in spite of the intriguing life choices that Trevor knew about, had come from a background so vanilla as to render her one of those people whose lives weren't congruent with their lust for it, that that had been the reason that she had gotten involved with the life. Now it would seem that it was bred into her. He'd seen the note that was stuck in there with her pictures, but it had been too vague and, quite frankly, he wasn't terribly interested in whatever angsty pretext lay behind it.

Now he knew that she was a kindred spirit more or less, unless she was lying. But he was a pretty apt bullshit detector and what she had said didn't raise his alarms. Shit, she hadn't even wanted to tell him. He could see in her face that she had just wanted for him to shut the fuck up about it, but he had more or less dragged it out of her by exploiting her weird need to pacify him. He had seen that need when they dumped that guy's body together and he had seen it tonight. Now his feelings for her had taken on yet another layer. Honestly, it wasn't one that he was terribly fond of. It made him feel gross, and it was no easy task to make Trevor Philips feel gross.

Why couldn't he go back to just wanting her to bang his brains out for as long as he could hold her interest? If he could just side-step all these fucked up _feelings_ , he could go back to his own psychological stomping grounds and rage on with his life. As much as he wanted to keep standing there with her arms around his neck, pushing her body into his, he couldn't be in the same room with her right now because it was making him fucking insane. He wanted to get back to himself. Perhaps it was that desire that set him on this path tonight in the wee hours of the morning. If he couldn't wish his way out of this mess, he would shoot his way out. He would find whoever had sicced those motherfuckers on Meadow and put them out of circulation, if only for the satisfaction of doing it.

 

Trevor pulled up to Liquor Ace just as the sun was coming up. He pushed in through the front doors and walked back through the stock room and up the stairs to find Chef making his magic at his work bench, surrounded by bunsen burners.

Chef looked up at him.

“Hey, boss...Uh,” she started, looking Trevor up and down. “You look a fright.”

Trevor sauntered over to Chef, glaring in his direction.

“I look a _fright?_ When did you turn into an old British lady,” Trevor asked.

Chef just stared at him queerly. “You're covered in blood,” he observed.

Trevor looked down at his shirt, which was indeed covered in spatter. He chuckled in a low voice. “Just another day smiting my enemies,” he said in a tone that dripped with menacing sarcasm. “Now, I'm ready to work.”

“Here,” asked Chef, quizzically.

“Yeah, Chef,” replied Trevor, obviously irritated. “I didn't drop by at fucking _dawn_ for a social call. I'm gonna help you cook.”

Chef didn't let that request marinade. “Grab a smock, I can always use another set of hands.”

“Or a taste-tester,” Trevor replied with a devilish grin.

Chef looked at him, a little fearfully. “Yeah..er...that, too.”

Trevor wasn't ready to head back to the trailer without getting a little lit. He pulled on a black apron and found a set of goggles and shimmied in next to Chef.

 

 

Ron lingered on the front porch of the trailer and tried to be quiet as he paced. He had received a text from Trevor just an hour and a half after he had left said trailer, instructing him to keep an eye on Meadow, to make sure that she didn't leave, and to have some guns at the ready. When he walked in to the trailer, the first thing he saw was Meadow fast asleep on the couch, clutching a beer bottle to her chest. Her sleep attire was not the most modest, and since Ron had only just fallen into her good graces, he didn't want to be there when she woke up.

Instead, he stood patrol on the front porch, sitting in lawn chair with the SMG in his lap and he had nodded off. Now he was awake, kicking himself for allowing himself to fall asleep on the job.

The sun was just now coming up when he heard the trailer door open. He turned around to see Meadow stepping out, still clad in her baggy muscle shirt and underwear, a sleepy look on her face. She smiled at him, warmly. He could see in the orange morning light that her face was a bit bruised, but she didn't look half-bad considering what she'd been through the night before.

“Hi,” she said, her voice croaky with sleep.

Ron faced her but avoided looking at her. “H-hi, Meadow,” he stammered.

She walked to the edge of the porch where he stood, by the railing and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from a knot in her shirt, removing one and pressing it between her lips before lighting it and taking a long drag.

“Do you mind,” she asked him holding up the cigarette.

“No,” said Ron. “I didn't know you smoked.”

Meadow looked at him and laughed a little bit in between drags.

“I guess you would know,” she said, still smiling.

This made Ron blush. She was clearly referencing the stalking. He looked up at her, ready to apologize for it again, but she spoke first.

“I'm kidding, Ron. It's squashed,” she said. She looked down at the cigarette in her hand. “I don't really smoke that often. It's a sometimes thing. I just found these on Trevor's nightstand and got a hankering.”

She turned and faced him, and he practically flinched. She cocked her head at him before looking down at her bare legs. “Shit,” she said. “I'll go put something on.” She stamped out the cigarette before heading inside. Ron followed her in, where she walked to the couch with a slight limp, pulling out a pair of shorts and slipping them on.

“How are you feeling,” Ron asked.

“Oh, better. I'm pretty sure everything's superficial. My legs are sore as hell, though,” she laughed.

“Did you run track or something? You were pretty fast,” Ron said, trying to make conversation, albeit awkwardly.

“Mmm, no I wasn't a big joiner in school. I did most of my running in basic. I was in the Navy for a few years out of high school.”

“Wow,” Ron said. “What happened with that?”

Meadow shot him a surprised look. He was being very candid all of a sudden. He felt at ease with Meadow, at last.

“Uh, it's kind of a long story, but I was discharged right before they were supposed to turn me over to the reserves. I participated in, shall we say, an altercation with Merrywhether on board the ship I was on. I thought that they were EC, so I acted on instinct and...Sort of killed four of them,” she said. She had a far away look in her eyes as she spoke. “But, it turns out that they were there to collect something as a part of some super secret operation and I got in their way. Luckily, I got off pretty light because the powers that be wanted to keep it out of the public record. So I signed a gag order that stipulated that I wouldn't be court martialled as long as I kept my mouth shut.”

“You did what you had to do,” said Ron, sounding empathetic.

Meadow smiled at him. “We all do... I just wish that I didn't have to see two of my buddies get killed on board that ship,” she said without a hint of sentimentality. Ron could see that Meadow was comfortable with him, finally, at least enough to flagrantly violate a gag order. Maybe this wasn't something that she kept close to the vest or maybe she was just too sleepy to keep a secret, but he marveled at her candor. Her face got serious.

“Do you know where Trevor is,” she asked. “He bolted out of here last night without giving me an explanation.”

Ron got a little nervous again. “That's a thing he does sometimes. I don't know where he went, but he told me to keep an eye on you and not to let you leave.”

“Do you know when he'll be back, 'cause it's kind of awkward sitting on my hands, waiting for more of his whimsy,” she said bitterly.

Ron shrugged. Suddenly, though he became a little bit alarmed and looked at Meadow with pleading eyes. “Meadow, please just stay here. I don't know when he's coming back but when he says something, he means it. I don't want for him to be angry.”

Meadow looked at him with a mixture of what he perceived to be disgust and confusion. “Er, okay?”

“I'm sorry,” Ron said, suddenly remorseful. “I don't want to tell you what to do, it's just-”

“It's fine, Ron,” said Meadow holding up one of her hands having wiped that look off of her face and replaced it with a look of understanding. She sighed and looked around, crinkling her nose slightly. “But if I'm being held here indefinitely, I'm going to need for you to do something for me.”

Ron gulped. “Uh, o-okay,” he stammered.

She looked at him, exasperated. “Lighten up, Ron, it's nothing sinister... Jesus, you scare easily,” she said laughing and shaking her head at him before limping over to the sink and looking inside. She crinkled her nose again at whatever was in there. “No, I just...I just need for you to go and get me some cleaning supplies from my house, 'cause this place is giving me a fucking rash and I need something to do.” She turned back toward him. “Making this place livable should take me at least a month,” she joked.  
Ron didn't get that she was being hyperbolic at first, though, Meadow had a knack for getting her point across to the dense with a single look. When Ron saw that look, he relaxed a little and laughed.

“Sure thing,” he said before heading out the door to fill her request.

 

 

Meadow's hair was tied in a top knot that was coming loose after several hours of laborious scrubbing over every surface in the house. At last, though, it was coming together.The dishes were done and put away and the floors were as sparkly as one could hope to find in this place. Most satisfying to her, though, was that the toilet was white again. It had been the most unpleasant undertaking of the day, but now she wasn't afraid to pee, which she had needed to do for hours.

She set about making the bed with the newly clean bed-linens. They still smelled a little bit like stale cigarettes and man musk, but it was a marked improvement. She folded the top sheet over the comforter, barracks style and fluffed the pillows. She took one last look around at her handy work before limping back out to the living room where Ron was.

Ron looked around at the newly-cleaned trailer, wearing a shocked expression. He had tried to lend a hand, but Meadow insisted on going it alone because she was clamoring for activity and wasn't ready to cede a single task to him. The only thing that she had asked of him was to help her identify what was garbage because she didn't want to chance throwing something away and having Trevor get all huffy that she had thrown away something “valuable”, the way that men often did when you tossed their thread-bare socks. Ron knew Trevor well enough to oblige.

“Wow, I didn't know that there was a floor in here,” Ron said. Meadow laughed in response, a little bit taken aback at his pass at humor.

Meadow walked over to the counter to retrieve a beer procured from the grocery run that she sent Ron on after vehemently promising that she wouldn't tell Trevor that he had left her alone. She grabbed a beer and handed it to Ron, too.

“For a job well-done,” she said. He didn't refuse it and they sat and drank their beers together in silence for a few minutes before Meadow grew uncomfortable. “So, what's your story, morning glory?”

Ron looked up at her, confused at first, but quickly becoming savvy to the fact that she wanted to get to know him.

“I ain't really got a story,” he said.

“Bullshit, Ron, everyone has a story,” she replied. “I know you're divorced, let's start with that.”

Ron wriggled a little bit, staring down at his feet.

“What's there to tell? I had a wife and then she stopped wanting to be my wife,” he said somberly.

“What'dya do,” she asked.

Ron shot her a look. It was the first departure from nervousness that she had seen out of him. He even looked a little angry.

“I didn't do _anything_ ,” he said defensively. Meadow could tell that she had wounded him a little bit.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “That was presumptuous. Mind telling me what happened?”

Ron twisted his mouth off to the side and stared at the ceiling, searching for a satisfactory answer.

“Well, once I got into...Ya know, conspiracies and stuff, things started to go downhill. We didn't really have anything in common after that, and then I started hanging out with Trevor and that's when she left,” he said.

“So, Trevor dissolved your marriage,” she asked.

“No, no. It wasn't him. Things were going nowhere fast with my ex-wife. Me spending all that time with him just kind of drove the final nail in,” he said.

Meadow could tell that he was being honest instead of just paying lip-service to the benevolence of Trevor. Still, it made her kind of sad. She knew a thing or two about self-sabotage. She regretted diving right into the heavy stuff, so she decided to change the subject.

“I was married once,” she beamed.

Ron looked up at her with wide eyes. “Really?”

“Yeah...I mean, it was a sham marriage and it only lasted a month. It was stupid, I was only nineteen. He was a friend of my adoptive brother's and he needed a green card, so I married him and stayed married to him until he decided that he wanted more than a green card from me. He was really old fashioned like that. So I kicked him out and got an annulment,” she told him.

“That's awful,” said Ron with genuine sympathy.

Meadow switched over to damage control mode. “Ron, it's fine. He didn't...ya know,” she said, waving her hands and shaking her head. “He just had a hissy and I hate to hear a grown man whine, so I nixed him.”

Ron looked relieved. He was clearly not ready for the heavy stuff, either, and this conversation seemed to consist entirely of emotional landmines. The two of them finished their beers before opening two more. That's when Meadow leaned forward and stared at him intently.

“So, Ron. I've gathered that you're into conspiracies. I think it's time you told me what some of your theories are,” she said.

Ron looked at her suspiciously. Meadow could tell that he wasn't used to people outside of his conspiracy fold canvassing for this information, so she raised her eyebrows at him expectantly, trying to maintain a veneer of seriousness. That satisfied Ron and he beamed at her.

He spent the next two hours regaling her with tales of lizard men and illuminati, and she sat and listened intently to his theories, a small token of her gratitude for him being such a trooper.

 

 

Trevor woke up on a bare mattress in the corner of the cook house inside of Liquor Ace. He looked around, but there was no sign of Chef. He looked outside at the sky, seeing that night had fallen. He rolled over to get off the bed before he noticed his phone at his side, the prognostic light blinking on it, revealing that he had messages. He grabbed it and looked to find a whopping thirty five text messages and almost as many missed calls from Ron. He sighed and began scrolling through them.

All of them were marked urgent, per Ron's paranoia, and most of them said much of the same thing. _Where r u boss! Worried!_ and _R u okay?_ littered the inbox. Finally, he scrolled to the top, where the newest messages were and opened the latest. _It's been thirty six hours boss where r u!_

Trevor shot up. _Thirty six hours? Holy shit._ He looked at the clock to see that by now, it had been closer to forty hours. _Christ,_ he thought. _Talk about a hard crash. No wonder I feel so good, I've been asleep for sixteen hours._

The “work” that he had showed up to do quickly turned into his own personal speed party, during which he rambled at Chef, who was actually working, about Meadow and how he'd had to clean up all her fucking messes and just when he thought it was over he'd gotten pissed off and drove down to the trailer park where the Aztecas roamed around and beat the name of the guy who'd sent those three fuck heads after her out of some poor little bastard and then he went and found that guy and shot him in the head after he'd made sure that it was an insular operation and that he didn't need to worry about anyone from the Aztecas messing with her again. The day's activities were intermittently peppered with Trevor shooting at the tires of passing cars. Somewhere along the line, he'd packed it in and passed out. He dialed Ron.

 _Hello_ , came the voice at the other end.

“Ron! Jesus, Ron, I passed out for sixteen hours. Is everything okay over there?”

_Yeah, Trevor, we're fine._

“Is Meadow okay? What's she doing?”

 _She's in the shower now, Trevor. We just got done having dinner._ Trevor narrowed his eyes.

“You took her out to dinner,” Trevor asked, his temper creeping out in his voice.

 _No, I didn't take her anywhere. We've been here the whole time. She cooked us dinner and now she's in the shower._ Trevor rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Just what in the fuck is going on over there, Ron? You're supposed to be watching her and you're playing house,” he spat.

_I didn't mean-_

“No! Fuck it, I don't wanna hear it,” Trevor said, now pissed off.

_Listen to me, Trevor. She's bored. She was getting ready to leave, but I convinced her to stay. She wanted to cook for me, so I let her. It worked, she's still here._

Trevor sighed. He wasn't entirely sure that he was pissed off at Ron. He suspected that he was a little more pissed off at his own negligence. If shit had gone south while he was passed out...

“I'm on my way back,” he said, his anger having disintegrated some.

_We'll see you soon._

Trevor hung up. He got to his feet and took a deep breath. He would have felt refreshed if he didn't feel so angry at himself. He walked outside, got into the Bodhi, and headed back to the trailer.

When he got there, Ron was in the yard, creeping around holding a transistor radio.

“Hey, Trevor,” chirped Ron. “I'm glad you're back!”

Trevor raised his eyebrows at Ron's earnestness.

“What's doin',” Trevor asked, starting toward the house. “She in there, still?”

Ron simply nodded and went back to creeping, heading back toward his own trailer, now. Trevor snorted at the sight.

“Yeah, you're relieved of your duties! At ease, soldier,” he called after Ron.

Trevor walked into the trailer and almost stopped dead in his tracks. Meadow was nowhere to be seen, but her presence was definitely felt. _Jesus_ he thought. The trailer was pristine. Not a single goddamn speck of dust in the air, nor a single stray news paper littering the floor. He was surprised that his neon Benedict light was still hanging there, askew. _Women_.

He walked to the kitchen counter where there was an open case of beers. He pulled a bottle out of the case and looked it over. Some fancy micro brew. Ron had obviously ignored standing orders and went to the store for her. _Fucker_ he thought, though he didn't have it in him to act on the anger. He scoffed at the princess beer before heading to the fridge to get something less _frou frou_ for himself. He cracked one open before walking back over to the counter and leaning on it. It was then that he heard tiny feet padding across the laminate floor toward him, but didn't turn around to meet them.

Suddenly, a hand reached across his field of vision, covering his eyes. The hands' owner pressed herself into his side and draped her free arm across his shoulder. He could feel her little breaths close to his face, feeling her gaze on him. He felt relief. He'd half-expected for her to hurl all manner of abuses at him as soon as he walked through the door, demanding that he tell her why he'd left her cooped up in the trailer for the better part of two days. Normally, that wouldn't be such a bad thing. He liked that game a little bit, but this was better for the moment.

“Are we playing _guess who_ ,” he asked before taking another sip of his beer, careful not to move too much. He felt her breath on his face as she snorted at him, but she didn't reply. “Okay, I'll bite. I like this game,” he said. “Could it be the little pixie that decided to turn my trailer into the fucking Radisson while I was away?” Meadow snorted again and replied.

“Not even an army of coked-out pixies with crippling OCD could turn this place into the _Radisson_ , Tiger,” she said, giving a low laugh. He nodded slightly. She didn't move her hand from his eyes.

“You didn't tell me if I guessed right,” he said, ignoring the snark.

“I'm not giving it away that easy. But you might be on the right track,” she replied.

He took another sip of his beer.“Mmm, she makes her own rules,” he said. “Alright, then. Is it whoever's been drinking the overpriced fucking micro brews on the counter?” She got right in his ear to reply.

“Oh, you're white hot now, Tiger. Now, it's time for the lightning round. I'll make it easy for you... It's the chick who's been sitting in this trailer for two goddamn days without a word from the guy who brought her here,” she hissed back. _“Guess fucking who.”_

She removed her hand and stepped back, looking at him with anger in her eyes. He stood up straight and looked right back.

“I didn't leave because I was afraid that if I did, you would come back and take it out on Ron, but now I feel like a moron, because I get the distinct feeling that you could give a shit,” she said, never taking her eyes off of him.

Trevor covered his face with one of his hands, rubbing his temples with his thumb and middle finger. Play time was over, he saw.

“Look,” he said. “I'm sorry. I lost track of time.”

Meadow scoffed at him. “Oh, you did? Well, in my book, that makes you the luckiest motherfucker alive, because all I've been doing is counting the hours, which have been going by very. Fucking. Slowly.”

“ _Jesus Christ_ , Kitten. I said I'm sorry,” he said staring back at her, wide-eyed and hunched over, mock groveling. “I had some shit I had to take care of, work stuff, okay? Time got away from me.”

Meadow crossed her arms and shook her head at him. “You've been doing crank,” she spat at him, not pulling any punches.

Trevor's eyes got even wider. He turned his head slightly, looking at her through the side of his eye. _How the fuck did she know?_

“Did you leave the trailer,” he asked, still side-eyeing her.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “What the fuck did I _just_ get done telling you,” she yelled. “No, I've been here the entire goddamn time, but thanks for telling me what I already knew.”

“It has been a long week, Kitten, I needed to get out. I'm sorry that I left you here, but I need for you to believe me when I say that I didn't mean to stay away for so long,” he said, his voice climbing in decibels. She continued, ignoring his explanation.

“Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all that you've done for me but I don't fucking get what's going on here and frankly, I'm sick of the runaround. So thanks a lot, it's been swell, but I think it's time for me to go,” she said, turning away from him. She started for her things, which were neatly stacked next to the couch before Trevor walked toward her, catching her by the arm. He spun her around to face him and looked at her. He was angry now.

“You wanna talk about the fucking runaround, Kitten,” he spat. He was only inches from her face. “You come into this town, fucking turn my life upside-down. One minute you're looking at me like I'm the fucking devil himself and you can't fucking _wait_ to get away from me and the next you're smashed against me, two seconds from letting me fucking _destroy_ you. That's the fucking runaround,” he yelled.

He let go of her arm and began pacing while Meadow, shell-shocked but still a little bit angry, just stared at him as he continued his rant, never lowering his voice. “I had to get the fuck out of here, okay? I just...” He lifted his balled fists, frustrated, letting out a little growl before continuing. “Everything changed when you came. And I've been feeling _really_ fucking weird ever since and at first, I couldn't figure out what was going on, but the other night, I realized what it was.” He turned to face her. He pointed a rigid finger at her, his eyes blazing. “It's you. I know _exactly_ how I feel about you. There's no mystery there. I'm not tearing my hair out, trying to figure out where I stand because I _know_ that I'm fucking crazy about you.” He was panting a little bit, now. “But there's one thing I can't figure out, Meadow,” he said pacing in front of her. His chin was down. His narrowed eyes were glued to her. “And that's where you stand. I can't figure out how you feel about me,” he said before he stopped pacing. He was right in front of her now, staring down into her face. Her eyes were a little bit softer now, but her jaw was clenched. “So maybe you can do me a favor and just tell me. It doesn't matter what it is, you can tell me to go to hell for all I care, but I need an answer,” he said.

Meadow looked away for a moment and sighed before looking back up at him. Her eyes were a little bit wet, but she wasn't crying the way she did two nights ago. Her breathing was quiet, but Trevor could tell that it was a little bit labored. She opened her mouth to reply, but she let it hang open for a minute, waiting for the words to come, before she bit her lip. Finally, she spoke.

“Sometimes, when I'm with you...I want to pull down the sky... Or scoop your heart out with a gardening trowel and eat it and throw myself under a moving train. And other times...” Trevor looked at her, aching to hear the next words come out of her mouth. His heart was in his throat, making it hard to breathe. Meadow continued, “Other times, I just want you to fucking hold me,” she said softly, shaking her head slowly and shrugging.

Trevor stared down at her. Without realizing it, he was practically hovering over her. His senses were in overdrive now. He could smell her hair. He could hear her breaths coming through her nose. He could see something dancing behind her eyes.

Trevor dropped his beer and looked down at her, his jaw a little slack before he inhaled and pressed his mouth to hers, locking lips with her for a minute before she pushed her tongue into his mouth. He exhaled as he returned the gesture, pulling her in by the waist as he did. Her mouth was hot, not warm. He held the back of her head in one of his hands and ran his fingers through her hair, nice and slow before pulling away to look at her. Then, some intangible flip was switched.

He pulled her upward and she wrapped her legs around him. They explored one another's mouths with their tongues, both of them breathing hard, their moans and sighs working in tandem to create some kind of song that only they knew the words to.

He carried her over to the counter and set her there leaning into her her, planting slow but feverish kisses on her neck and shoulders, pulling her waist back into his every time her body slid back on the Formica from the force of those kisses. She leaned back, propping herself up on her hands, letting him touch her all over her thighs, letting his hands fall on her hips. She gasped when he ground his hard on between her legs.

She moaned and sighed and bit her lip before pulling his face to hers and kissing him hard. She laid back on the counter. At this, he pushed her shirt up and began to kiss her stomach- wet kisses that set her grinding against him. He ran his hand up her crotch, dragging a long, hushed moan out of her. He pulled her closer and moved her shirt up past her tits, grabbing at them with eager hands, putting them in his mouth, kissing them. He wanted her so bad that it was eating him alive.  
She sat bolt upright, suddenly and looked at him, still panting. He licked his lips and stared at her. He held her against him, locking one of his arms around her thigh, pulling her head closer to his by the back of her neck. They both breathed heavily, just staring at each other.

“B-baby, wh-what is it,” Trevor stammered at her in between breaths. The disruption was unwelcome.

Meadow swallowed and licked her lips. She stroked his forearm.

“I-,” she started before cutting herself off. She looked like she wanted to tell him something. Her eyes were a little bit dark. They continued to stare at each other. He waited for her to say what she was thinking. He didn't care what it was. He needed some fucking resolution. Her eyes flashed, suddenly light again. She smiled a barely visible smile at him.

“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. She grabbed him and kissed him again. She slung her arms around him, practically pouncing on his head.

She slipped her shirt off and let him look, only for a moment before she kissed him again, more softly this time. He broke the kiss and pressed his face into her neck and sighed, nibbling and sucking and kissing before he lifted her off the counter, walking her into his room, slowly bringing them down to the bed.

She began to pull his shirt up. He busied himself kissing her chest before he pulled his shirt off the rest of the way. He looked down at her, gasping from all that contact, the touching and kissing and squeezing. He let his eyes move up and down her. She laid there, looking back up at him, breaking into a smile. There was nowhere in the world that he would rather be than here in this room with her. That was a rare feeling for an old rat bastard that had spent most of his life thinking one step ahead, never wanting to stop for anything.

Meadow arched her back and unclasped her bra, flinging it to the side. That's when he got to see her for the first time. He'd imagined it plenty of times before, but now that it was in front of him...He felt like he was in a haze. He took in the sight before him, letting his mind settle into it.

 _“Fuck, Kitten.”_ She stared back up at him with an inquiring expression trying to see into his head. And even horizontal, she couldn't seem to help herself. She cocked her head at him. And that's when he couldn't hold back. He dove back into her body with his.

It was anyone's guess how long they were going at it. Sometimes, during the whole affair, it's like they were urgently trying to fill their biological imperative, fucking like forest critters and others, it was more like proper lovemaking, sweet and slow and full of purpose. The one thing that didn't change was the song that it made. The bed springs rocking, both of them moaning, sometimes sedately, more loudly at others.

Trevor couldn't help but notice despite himself that Meadow was still so lofty to him. Even while he was inside of her, feeling her, testing her, she was like royalty. Even when she grabbed his ass while he was on top of her. Even when she dug her fingers into his biceps, and yes, even when, while on top of him, she demanded in a breathy voice, just a note or two higher than her normal one, that he squeeze her tits as she climaxed, which was enough to send him over the edge with her.

She lowered herself, propping herself up on her hands on either side of his head, looking down at him, gasping. She broke into a smile as she did. They both hung there, lost in each other for a minute before Trevor broke the silence.

“Place looks nice, by the way.”

Meadow stared at him for a minute before she collapsed into him, cackling into his neck.


	10. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another one that I didn't let stew in my brain for too long before I committed it to text. I hope you like it. It might be a little choppy. Lots of exposition-type stuff, sprinkled with smut, and a visit from a couple old friends :)

Meadow was laying against the upholstered headboard with pillows supporting her lower back. The salmon-covered comforter covered her lap, but she had one leg hanging off the side of the bed. It was hot and swampy inside that windowless bedroom. She was pushing back her cuticles with her thumb while Trevor lay on his stomach next to her. She could feel him looking at her and after a few minutes she let her mouth curl into a smile, glancing sideways back down at him.

They had been laying there in silence for several minutes, catching their breath and soaking up the energy in the room, neither of them really knowing what to say nor wanting to say anything at all. So, they just basked in the post-coital bliss and awkwardness, both of them glowing with sweat, neither of them minding the silence. Finally, Trevor rolled over onto his side, facing her directly and giving her yet another once over with his eyes, shaking his head and sighing.

“Well, that was unexpected,” he said in an uncharacteristically soft voice.

“Disappointed,” she asked.

“Don't ask questions you already know the answer to,” he shot back, giving her stomach a little squeeze. She tensed up against his tickling touch and laughed. She slid down next to him to meet his eye line. She stroked the side of his face and looked into his eyes, looking at his scars and lines, trying to memorize them. She rolled over onto her back, but kept staring at the wizened man at her side. He took the St. Christopher medal that she wore around her neck in his hands and began thumbing it.

“You Catholic,” he inquired dryly.

Meadow thought about the question. She didn't really fancy herself Catholic, and in fact had begun to think of Catholicism as more of a vice for her over the past several years. It was Naida who had given her the medal as well as her compulsory Catholic upbringing, putting her through her first communion and dragging her to church each time she had “lost her way,” which was a euphemism for just about every transgression under the sun. Among those transgressions was kicking someone's bike out from under them in retaliation for throwing rocks at her adoptive brother, Ignacio and being brought home by a cop in the middle of the night after losing her virginity in the back seat of a Vapid Stanier after a homecoming dance.

“I was raised in the Church, but no, I...I mostly gave up on that part of my life,” she responded quietly.

“You still wear this, though,” he observed.

“Yeah, my...Um, the lady that adopted me gave me this a long time ago. She said that it would protect me. It feels weird not to wear it.”

“Do you feel protected,” he asked, pointedly.

“Yes, but I'm pretty sure it's the power of suggestion.” Trevor looked at her with a look that was somewhere between confused and judgmental.

“Why do you wear it, then?”

“I dunno, I guess 'cause it reminds me of her and...I like saints. They're just magic people,” she shrugged. That response seemed to satisfy Trevor enough for him to move on.

“Do you still talk to her,” he asked.

Meadow sighed. “I haven't talked to her in almost eight months,” she replied. She wasn't interested in hiding the shame behind that statement.

“Did you fall out with her or something,” he asked.

Meadow was growing a little bit uncomfortable with all his questions, questions that seemed to be spilling out. But she wasn't interested in diverting the conversation elsewhere as she had suddenly adopted the position that she didn't want to hide anything from the man with whom she had just shared one of the most intimate encounters of her life.

“No. I started avoiding her because I decided that it wasn't safe for her to be associated with me anymore. Not after I started...Not after I started killing people for a living.”

Trevor studied her face. “Yeah, I've been meaning to ask you...How did you go from being a nurse to being an assassin. That's kind of weird career move,” he said dryly.

“There was some intersection there. I treated the guy that recruited me. He called me up a few weeks after he was at Mount Zonah to tell me that he had a business proposition and that was it,” she replied. Trevor looked at her with a look that obviously conveyed that there was missing information in there. She decided to continue, against her better judgment. “His name is Tyson but he goes by Badger. He's one of those, ya know, computer geek cyber renegades that has everyone's information at his fingertips and I guess I piqued his interest enough for him to go digging into my past. When he did that, he found some very privileged information about my Naval background and decided that he wanted to bring me into his little fold.”

“What did he find,” Trevor inquired, obviously intrigued. Meadow shifted uncomfortably where she lay. She continued slowly, trying to choose her words carefully and concisely.

“I was discharged for psychological issues after I mistook some Merrywhether guards aboard my fleet for enemy combatants and killed them. They were actually supposed to be there, but we weren't told that, so me and two other guys on patrol engaged them. I killed four of them, but not before my patrol buddies were both fatally shot. I didn't really have any recourse, so I walked away with my discharge papers and a gag order addendum.”

Trevor let a humorless guffaw escape his throat. “Jesus, Kitten. You pissed off Merrywhether? A girl after my own heart...I guess the shit storm didn't ensue in Sandy Shores,” he said, repositioning himself.

“No, it just followed me,” she said flatly. Then she thought better of casting herself as a passive party and said “Er, I brought it with me.”

“Well, you've explained the _who, what,_ and _where,_ but the _why_ is woefully absent from that explanation,” Trevor said.

Meadow looked at him but then her eyes went searching for an answer to be had in the air. Nobody had ever asked her. She'd asked herself plenty of times, but had never really found a satisfactory answer. She was quiet for a while before she answered. “I joined the service because I needed structure, you know? Like, a place where I had a function and a fuckin' label, even. I never had that anywhere else. God, I wasn't even a huge fan of the military up to that point. I didn't have any interest in being part of a war machine. But I didn't know what else to do. I ran into a recruiter at my high school and after a half hour with him...I don't know, he made it sound like it was made for people like me. And he was right. I got to basic and it was full of kids that reminded me of myself. Kids that didn't really have a place. It started to fell like a real home. And I had my shit together. I used my G.I. Bill to get through nursing school. But, after what happened with Merrywhether, it all started to feel like a lie. And I got really depressed and couldn't feel anything...Badger only ever sent me after people that were really easy to hate. People that had done objectively bad things. And I started feeling again. Not good, mind you, but at least I could feel. By the time I realized what I was turning in to, I had stopped caring.”

“Yeah, I know that whole fuckin' opus by heart,” he said. “Keep going, though. I wanna know how you ended up here.”

Meadow, despite the fact that she had been so reticent earlier, started getting lost in the story, half-wanting to keep it expedient, half-wanting to hear the whole thing out loud. She was laying on her back, holding her necklace in both her hands, staring at the ceiling.

“Eventually, Badger fucked up and didn't do his homework, so on one of my assignments, I killed an FIB informant. The division that was using the guy's services traced it back to me and...To make a long story short, they blackmailed me into carrying out hits for them. I wasn't cooperative at first, but they were very persuasive. They said that they could retroactively overturn the Navy's decision, which was bullshit, but I didn't say anything because I was afraid that they would go after my friends and family if they thought that they could twist my arm that way instead. That's why I didn't even tell Badger about my relationship with the Bureau, even though it was his fault,” she continued monotonously. “After about eight months of working for them, they quit patting me down, so I started wearing a wire and secretly recorded them for three months. Three months was long enough for me to get all their names on there. One day, I brought the lead agent a jump drive with all the recordings and told him that I was out. I told him that I didn't care about going to prison anymore, but that if they tried to blackmail me again, I had a way to make the information come back down on his head. See, I gave the recordings to Badger and told him not to listen to them under any circumstances but that if he lost contact with me for more than a week or so to send one copy of the drive to Steve's superiors and another to Weazel News.”

Meadow was completely immersed in the story by now, practically forgetting that she was naked in Trevor's bed. She had never heard the whole story before. It was a story that she knew well, of course, but hearing it out loud was galvanizing for her. She hadn't really noticed that Trevor was now sitting up, staring down at her. “Three weeks after I quit, I was sitting in a motel in Chumash and I saw a news report that Steve had been killed. He was sitting on a fucking ferris wheel filming his hacky reality show and someone just...” She pantomimed the cocking and shooting of a gun before continuing, her hand frozen in the shape of a gun. “I knew that that shit had my signature all over it, so I waited it out in that motel for another couple of weeks before I asked Badger to help me leave the county without anyone noticing.”

Meadow sighed and continued to stare at the ceiling for a moment, when her wits started coming back to her. She realized how loquacious she had just been, chewing on her own story and spitting it back out. For what? For Trevor's approval? No, no it wasn't approval she was looking for. She had needed to tell that story. She had needed to tell it to herself. Because all that mental map-making, that cartography that she had relied on to help her orient herself to whatever totally weird situation she was in had started to fail. It brought her no closer to the answers that she needed about who she was and where she was going. At least hearing the story out loud might help her figure out if there was any part of her former self that was salvageable. She looked up at Trevor, looking down at her, his eyes burning into her. They were narrowed, not in an angry way, but in an incredulous way. His lips were parted.

“Why are you looking at me like that,” Meadow demanded.

Trevor exhaled heavily. Meadow sat up, suddenly feel ten times more naked. She watched him rub his the side of his face as though he had just been sucker punched. He wordlessly got out of bed and left the room. Meadow just sat there for a minute, her thoughts suddenly beginning to race the way that they did sometimes when she felt like she might have gotten herself into a bad situation but wasn't sure what kind of bad situation.

She found her underwear and bra and pulled them both on before following Trevor out in the kitchen, where he was taking a beer out of the fridge. She watched him crack it and take a long pull. He turned to her.

“Kitten,” he started. “As soon as it's a decent hour, I want for you to call her, that lady that raised you.” Meadow looked at him crossways.

“Naida?”

“Yes,” Trevor continued without looking at her. “I want for you to call her when it gets light out. It's long overdue.”

Meadow was completely confounded at why he was suddenly talking to her this way. “Okay? Uh, I don't know where this is coming from, but-”

Trevor turned to look at her before interrupting her. “Because there's no reason for you to avoid her anymore. She's probably worried to death and you need to call her.”

“Trevor, what is this? You and I just got done fucking and then I spilled my guts to you and now you're all-” Just when Meadow was getting ready to tell him that he was being weirdly paternal and that creeped her out way worse than any amount of him undressing her with his eyes could do, he strode over to her, pulled her in by the waist with one arm and kissed her deep on the mouth before pulling away and looking at her. Meadow stared at him curiously. She was a little bit pissed off now. “Are you trying to placate me or was that the kiss of death,” she asked without thinking.

Trevor laughed. “Kitten, have you ever heard of kismet,” he asked.

“What, like fate? Yeah, so?

“I've spent my whole life thinking that that was just a romantic round of bullshit. I always said that you, me, everyone else in this fucked up world makes their own destiny. But you've given me, uh, pause where that's concerned. You might not be a believer anymore, but you might have turned me into one, understand?”

“I have no fucking clue what you're talking about, Tiger,” Meadow said. At this point, she didn't really care, though. Being in his arms put her at ease.

“Promise me you'll call Naida tomorrow,” he repeated. She stared hard at him for a moment.

“Fine,” she replied.

Trevor put his beer down on the counter and walked behind Meadow, enveloping her torso in one of his arms while he planted kisses on her neck. He ran his free hand over her chest before sneaking it into her bra, rubbing her nipple, breathing hard into her neck. _“I'm fucking crazy about you, you know that,”_ he growled into her.

Meadow was dizzy with excitement at his touch. Her sense memory was still keyed-up from their first sex. It was enough for her to forget her confusion at his request that she reestablish contact with Naida.

 _“Show me,”_ she gasped back at him. He turned her around and kissed her fervently as she shoved herself against him. They made it as far as the floor.

 

Trevor stared at Meadow, who laid at his side on the linoleum. She was out like a light. He had tried to stir her awake to get her into the bed, but she'd just turned her face away from him. He wanted nothing more than fall asleep right alongside her. Two good fucks had taken it out of him, to be sure, but he had something to take care of before he could even think about sleep.

He got up and found his phone in his shirt pocket, laying on the bedroom floor. He put on a pair of sweatpants and walked out to the porch. He leaned against the banister, staring out toward the yellowish band of light at the horizon that faded into blue and then black. He marveled at how clear his thinking was, more clear than it had been in as long as he could remember.

Mere months ago, he would have taken what Meadow had told him as proof that she was a saboteur sent to neutralize him and fuck only knows how he would have responded. Even with his masterful bullshit-detecting skills, he had still been wounded from finding out that his best friend had faked his death to get away from him. He had used any excuse at his disposal to wreak havoc on everything around him to externalize the rage that this knowledge had instilled in him. Meadow had handed him something that he only enjoyed in small doses, some semblance of clarity and sanity, ironically the two things that she seemed to have lost in herself. Their worlds had collided. He'd seen her at her most vulnerable. That was all it took. He was getting snug with her in more ways than one.

He couldn't quite wrap his head around how wide the feds had cast their dragnet looking for people to conscript into their bullshit service, but there was another part of him that wasn't all that surprised. He'd found Mikey in San Andreas, after all, so coincidences or happy accidents or whatever they were called were within his scope of comprehension. Besides, the FIB liked to get their hooks into a specific type of person. Meadow fit that bill pretty closely if only for the fact that she was a career criminal who had made mistakes.

Still, the silly little nymph had dropped yet another loose end at his feet and he knew it was up to him to tie it up. He scrolled through his contacts until he found who he was looking for. He dialed the number and let it ring.

“Lester the molester! It's good to hear your _voice, man_. Did I wake you up? Tough shit...”

 

 

 

Meadow stood in the little Catholic church in Great Chapparal. The sun shined through the windows, illuminating the figures in the stained glass. It gave the wood a warm quality and made the alabaster statues incandescent. She inhaled the smell of the mahogany and listened to the priest, his voice carrying through the church in dilated acoustics as he led a prayer.

Meadow rested into Naida's side, savoring the feeling of her pillowy arm against her own. She had missed that feeling. She had missed the inside of a church without having known it herself. But Trevor must have known and that's why he'd insisted that she called Naida.

Meadow had missed Ignacio's engagement party. She had missed his small wedding. She had missed the birth of his son, Ruben. But she had made it just in time for his baptism. She and Naida looked on as Ignacio's new wife carefully held their son over the font, weeping quietly as the priest performed the affusion through prayers. Meadow's heart felt heavy at all that she had missed. She didn't deserve to be here. She had opted out of everything. She could hardly believe how warmly Naida and Ignacio had greeted her two nights prior, how warm Ruben felt in her arms as he squirmed and made faces up at her. But true to form, they had not only let her orphaned carcass back into their lives, they had embraced her. And now here she was.

She stifled a sob at the scene before her. It had been barely audible, but Naida reached down and squeezed her hand. This made Meadow relax a little. She felt Naida stroke her hand. She looked over at Naida, whose hair had begun to go gray in places. She had lines around her eyes, too. She was beautiful to Meadow, like a silver Madonna. Meadow looked forward and just stood for a moment before leaning sideways, close to Naida's ear.

 _“Te quiero,”_ she whispered as quietly as possible so as not to disrupt the baptism. Naida squeezed her hand and looked over at her.

 _“I love you too, Mija,”_ Naida replied so quietly that she was almost mouthing the words. The two women stared at each other for another moment before turning their eyes back on the baptism, both smiling through tears now.

 

 

Michael leaned back in the driver's seat trying to stretch his arms against the steering wheel. He'd only been driving for a couple of hours, but the sight of tractors and windmills was making him tense. He was back in Trevor Philips country, a place that he hoped that he would never have to visit again. He knew that it was a tall order, but one could hope. He was twitching with irritation, too, as the only radio station that would come in in this pocket of the drive was Blaine County Radio.

Franklin must have noticed Michael's rigid posture. “Hey, man, you want me to take over drivin' the last leg,” he asked.

Michael twitched once more before switching off the radio. “Nah, it's alright, Frank. I'm just...Not terribly excited about being here so soon after the last visit,” replied Michael.

Franklin considered this for a moment. “Shit, man, this was your idea. Why you choosing now to get cold feet,” he asked.

Michael snorted at Franklin's signature honesty. The kid was loyal as hell but he didn't pull any punches calling people on their shit, least of all Michael.

“Well, if Trevor would answer his fuckin' phone, I wouldn't need to drive out into the boonies to figure out what he's up to,” Michael replied.

“You still ain't told me what it is that got you all nervous,” Franklin said. Michael sighed.

“It's like I told you, Lester called me the other day huffin' and puffin' about how Trevor had called him up at dawn asking a bunch of freaky questions about the FIB,” he replied.

“Yeah, but that still don't explain why you're all flustered. Shit, I thought you'd be glad to have Trevor out of contact for a change. It ain't exactly in his nature to leave you alone. Why not embrace the silence?”

“I just want to find out what he's got up his sleeve. It can't be anything good. I don't know why he's barking up that tree again, we took care of that business with the FIB,” said Michael.

“I stand by what I said,” Franklin said. “I'm startin' to think that as much as you bitch about Trevor, you can't stand to have him out your life, even for a minute.”

“Hey,” Michael shot back defensively, “I had him out of my life for ten years and I was happy as could be in that time.”

“Whatever, man,” Franklin said, resigned.

The duo pulled up outside of Trevor's trailer about a half an hour later. Michael turned in his seat to face Franklin.

“Look, kid, let me do the talking okay? Assuming he's alive in there, I would like to handle this with the utmost discretion.” Franklin shot him a look.

“And you're always _discreet_ where Trevor Philips is concerned,” he scoffed. _“Please.”_

“That's fair,” Michael conceded before they both exited the car and made for the front door.

Michael knocked. He heard stirring inside. He knocked again, more irritated.

“I'm coming, _fuck_ ,” came an angry voice from the other side.

Trevor opened the door, looking even more disheveled than usual, if that was possible. At least his shirt looked clean. He was holding a beer.

 _“Mikey, Frank,”_ he crowed. “Nice to see ya, come on in!”

“Trevor,” said Michael in acknowledgment. Trevor sauntered to the fridge, pulling out two more beers. Michael and Franklin each accepted one. “To what do I owe the pleasure. Michael, I could have sworn that you made a blood oath never to drag your fat cadaver back into beautiful Sandy Shores. Did Amanda leave you again? You in the doghouse? Need a place to crash,” Trevor quipped.

Michael rolled his eyes. “We're doin' fine, thanks for asking.”

“Frank! How's life in L.S.? You holdin' it down out there in Plastic Land,” Trevor asked.

Franklin scoffed. “Yeah, sure, man.”

Trevor got quiet and studied his two friends. “So what's up? Someone die?” Michael glared at Trevor.

“No, Trevor, it's nothing like that,” he said. He stopped suddenly and looked around the trailer. “Er, have you been living in here? It looks...Clean.”

Trevor followed Michael's gaze around the trailer. “Yeah, so?”

Michael guffawed. “Well, forgive me for stating the obvious, old friend, but your trailer smells slightly less like the seventh layer of hell than usual and we both know that cleaning is not one of your pass times.”

Trevor let his voice get quieter. “Did you come all the way out here to insult me, Mike?”

Michael said “Aw, come on, man.”

“No,” shot back Trevor “You walk in here and immediately start in on me because my place is clean? Is that really a good pick up point for the second act of our friendship? Draw curtain, pitch Trevor shit?”

 _“Easy, T,”_ Michael said.

“No, fuck that, I-” Trevor had a finger in Michael's face just as Ron blew through the door.

He was beaming until he laid eyes on Michael. “Oh, sorry, I'll come back,” he said sheepishly as he made for the door.

“Ron! Don't be stupid, it's just Michael and Franklin,” Trevor said.

Ron nodded in acknowledgment at the men.

“Ron, nice to see you again,” Michael lied.

Ron's eyes flitted around for a second before his face lit up again. “I saw Meadow's car about a half a mile up the road through my binoculars. She made good time back from the Great Chapparal!”

Michael looked from Ron to Trevor, whose anger had dissipated. He now wore a coy expression, avoiding Michael's gaze.

Michael held up a finger. “Wait a minute, did you say _Meadow?_ Meadow's a person,” he asked.

Franklin looked at Michael inquisitively.

 _“Yeah,”_ Trevor said, sounding evasive.

“Oh,” came Ron's voice. He looked like a dog that knew that he was about to get beaten with a rolled-up newspaper. Trevor looked at him and glared, waving his hand to indicate to him either to calm down or shut up, Michael couldn't tell which.

“This is the Meadow that you called Lester to ask about a few nights ago,” Michael asked.

“He _told_ you about that,” Trevor spat with a disgusted look on his face. “That little gimpy fuck is right in your fuckin' pocket isn't he...”

Michael sat down on the futon, feeling a little confused all of a sudden. He had thought that _Meadow_ was some kind of a code word or something that Trevor had gotten a line on trying to find a new way to fuck with the Bureau. That was about as much as he had allowed himself to think about it. He wasn't picturing a live, sentient being. Then again, Lester had been flustered and hadn't really fully explained the situation to him in a comprehensible way.

Ron poked his head out the door. “She's pulling up to her place,” he said excitedly.

Trevor looked down at the floor. “Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure being in your presence, but now that I know that you only came down here because _Wheels_ narced me out for asking some perfectly innocent questions, I think we oughta cut this little rendezvous short. I have some things to take care of this afternoon.”

Michael looked up at Trevor, smiling a devilish smile. “Did you meet another middle-aged housewife and get your hooks into her? Or no, no, let me guess, she's the reigning Miss Methamphetamine of Blaine County,” he asked, affecting an Appalachian twang.

Trevor blinked at him. “Go fuck yourself, Michael,” he said quietly.

“Well, introduce us, Trevor! I want to see what kind of fucking mess you've gotten yourself into this time. Whatd'ya try to get Lester to get a backdoor into the FIB mainframe to erase her felony solicitation charges,” he laughed.

“Get out, Michael,” Trevor said, quiet still.

Franklin finally chimed in. “Y'all need to calm down. Trevor, Michael and I were obviously wrong to come here without tellin' you first, man, but-”

“Meadow!” Ron was in the doorway flailing his arms at someone in the distance. “We're over here!”

Michael still hadn't wiped the amused grin off of his face. He wanted to see who this Meadow was. A little amusement was the least he should get for coming all this way. If _Trevor_ was ashamed of her, she had to be something else. He got up and made for the door. Trevor followed close behind him.

“Michael, I am going to lay you the fuck out,” he snarled.

It was too late though, for the four men were out in the dirt yard in no time. Michael looked around for this Meadow freak show, making his way out of the yard to the road, followed closely by the other three men. Finally, he saw a figure coming across the dirt road toward them. The closer she got, though, the more Michael's smile faded.

The woman was no middle-aged housewife. Her face was not marred by scars and scabs, rather it boasted a spray of freckles. And when she glared against the afternoon sun, she bared a mouth full of white teeth, and not a one was missing. She wore her dishwater blonde hair in an elegant side bun, her eyes squinting beneath a pair of cat-eye glasses. She had on a clean white blouse with a pleated navy blue skirt. She shuffled toward them on a pair of oxford-style heels, with a leather purse in one hand, a cardigan sweater hanging from the other. She didn't look like a mess or a freak. No, she was attractive and clean, a strange hybrid of old Vinewood and a Sunday school teacher standing before him. Michael could only stare.

“Hey,” she chirped pleasantly, stopping in front of them.

Trevor cleared his throat and pushed past Michael to stand beside her. He sounded almost timid as he spoke, or as timid as Trevor Philips could be.

“How was the Christening,” he asked, looking at his feet.

The young woman looked at up at him, though his gaze was averted. “It was great. Everyone's doing fine...” She trailed off as she looked over to Michael and Franklin, who were both gawking at her. She scratched her cheek awkwardly. “Hi,” she said tentatively, her gaze fleeting between them.

They both continued to stare at her, confused. She looked past them to Ron and beamed at him, probably happy to see a friendly face.

“Hi, Ron,” she trilled.

“Hey, Meadow,” Ron responded in kind, rocking back on his heels.

Finally, after an awkward silence, Trevor cleared his throat again, placing his hand on her back, leading her toward Michael and Franklin, gently.

“Meadow, this is Michael and Franklin. Franklin and Michael, this is...Meadow,” he said looking down at her with a pitiful look on his face.

Franklin reached his hand out first, shaking off his gawkiness before Michael did. “Franklin. It's nice to meet you, Meadow,” he said.

Meadow smiled wide at him, looking relieved that he had mitigated the tension some with the gesture, and shook his hand.

“Likewise,” she said still smiling. She turned to Michael, hand outstretched and looked at him expectantly. Michael was still stunned. Meadow scrunched her face at him, partly against the sun, partly because he wasn't returning the hand shake. “You, uh, gonna leave me hangin', Chief,” she asked impassively. Michael could hear Franklin snort beside him.

Michael glanced at Trevor first before returning the handshake. “Meadow...It's, uh, nice to meet you. How do you know Trevor,” he asked. Meadow stared at him for a moment before she inexplicably let out a burst of unrestrained laughter and looked up at Trevor. Trevor averted his gaze, clearly agitated. Meadow's face straightened.

“I live right over there,” she said gesturing to a stucco house a little ways down the street. “I just moved here a little over a month ago. Trevor and Ron were the first people I met here.”

Michael just nodded his head absently, still looking her up and down. His wits had returned to him. “So, it's...neighborly,” Michael responded, waving his finger back and forth between the young woman and Trevor. She just stared at him. Trevor, though, had grown more visibly agitated, his anger just now reaching a very sudden apex.

 _“Fuck,”_ Trevor shouted. Meadow jumped a little bit. He started toward Michael and began pacing in front of him. “She brained a guy with her foot and I helped her get rid of the body and then I went and got her when some _Azteca fucks_ kidnapped her in retribution,” he barked at Michael in one breath. Michael heard Meadow gasp. He looked at her and she was gaping at Trevor. “You _happy_ , Mikey? It's even more unsavory than you imagined, motherfucker.” He jabbed his finger in Michael's face. That last sentence assured Michael that Trevor wasn't joking. Michael narrowed his eyes at Trevor and nodded. He looked over at Meadow.

“Got anything to add to that, sweetheart,” Michael said to her.

Meadow looked between the two men, mouth still open before she exhaled. She tugged on her ear, obviously uncomfortable. “We're also sleeping together,” she said phrasing it to sound more like a question than a statement.

 _“Shit,”_ said Franklin. Michael cocked his head back at the revelation, unsure if whether or not it was an attempt at joke. His uncertainty disappeared when he looked at Trevor, who was looking at her, nodding and smirking arrogantly all of a sudden. He then watched as Meadow began shaking her head incredulously, walking in a stiff-gait past the men toward the trailer. She called out behind her without looking back.

“Uh, Ron, I got you some of those trading cards you wanted from that hippie-dippy alien museum. Why don't you come and look and tell me if I got the right ones,” she said, obviously desperate for a diversion.

Ron shot the three other men a round-robin stare before he dutifully followed her into the trailer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned for one interesting bbq.


	11. Cookout

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this will be the second to last chapter. I was going to try and make this the last, but I squished enough little vignettes in here, I think. This one's kind of a shorty and the next one will likely be the same. Hope you like.

Meadow sat on the couch, legs crossed. Her leg was twitching, but she tried to sit still otherwise while Ron marveled at the souvenirs she brought him. He held up each trading card to her face one by one, explaining their significance to her.

“This guy is an alpha-draconian, those are the ones I was telling you about, those big, tall sonsofbitches...” Ron saw her face and stopped. “Are you still upset about what happened outside?” Meadow sighed and squeezed her eyes shut. Ron continued, “'Cause those guys are in the life, Meadow, they're Trevor's running buddies. You don't need to worry that they're going to rat you out or nothin'.”

Meadow considered this for a moment.She couldn't say that she was pissed at Trevor for disclosing her transgression to two strangers. Obviously, if they kept with Trevor, they weren't exactly on the straight and narrow. She was more stunned by how quickly his anger had escalated. It wasn't a side of him that she was used to seeing. Sure, she had seen his menace more than once and he had become severely agitated when she didn't want to talk about her little catatonic episode after her run-in with the Aztecas and again when she got on his case for disappearing for two days. But Michael had flipped some kind of switch in Trevor and seeing that had scared her. She had thought that he was going to punch his face in.

Meadow smiled up at Ron. He was so benevolent. She was happy that they had become such fast friends. His mild temperament was a much needed counterpoint to Trevor's explosive one. She could hear Michael and Trevor arguing outside in the yard with Franklin interjecting occasionally. It was making her nervous and she was not accustomed to being the markedly nervous party in Ron's company.

“Hey, are we still gonna have a barbecue,” asked Ron. “'Cause I cleaned the hibachi and I went out and got all the stuff, coals and everything,” he said hopefully.

Meadow perked up at this. She had remembered that she and Ron had discussed doing something _normal_ for a change, something to break up the utter chaos that had cluttered their acquaintance up to this point, 'cause even chaos can become a bit monotonous. She looked at Ron.

“Yes,” she said, pointing at him. “We are having a barbecue because we said that we were going to have a barbecue when I got back from my trip and that is what we're going to do.” She shot to her feet and strode out to the front porch and leaned over the banister, right over where the three men bickered. They didn't notice her standing over them.

“...Because you think that I'm incapable of having a nice, normal relationship with someone, Michael, just by virtue of me being me, and that's why I didn't want for you to meet her, and incidentally, that's what makes you a presumptuous twat,” roared Trevor.

“Your first date was dumping a body, _Trevor_. Check and _fuckin'_ mate,” barked Michael back at him.

“Hey,” Meadow shouted. The three men looked up at her in unison. She immediately checked her tone. “Um, Ron really wants to have a barbecue, so... _Cookout_ ,” Meadow said with a little falsetto, summoning as much mock-enthusiasm as possible. “Uh, I'm going to go change into something more casual and get better booze. Trevor, help Ron get the coals going.” She pointed at Michael and Franklin “You two do whatever it is that you do,” she said with a little shrug. The three men stared at her curiously for a moment. “Don't go anywhere,” she shouted back at them as she hopped down the porch steps and began running toward her house.

 

Meadow returned a few minutes later dressed in a t-shirt and denim cut-offs. She had also put in her contacts and swapped her glasses for aviators as the sun was especially harsh today. She carried her good beer under one arm and a bottle each of decent whiskey and vodka in the other. She was pleased to see Trevor standing over Ron as he got the coals going in the hibachi. It wasn't exactly what she'd had in mind when she asked him to help, but at least he and Michael weren't screaming at each other anymore. Ron saw her approaching.

“I put everything on the counter, Meadow,” he said before turning his attention back to the coals.

“Good man,” she said back in a sing-song voice. She walked into the trailer to see Michael and Franklin on the futon, both hunched over looking less than enthusiastic about being there. They looked up at her at the same time.

“Either of you want one of these,” she asked as she tilted the case of micro brews upward. “I know you're both city folk like me, surely you can appreciate it. Trevor hates it, won't even let me keep it in his fridge because he says that snobbery will sully the taste of his Pißwasser peasant swill or whatever, but maybe he'll turn the other cheek this once.” Trevor and Michael looked at each other first before they glanced back up at her.

“Fuck it, I'll take one,” said Franklin.

“Me too,” said Michael, sounding a little resigned.

Meadow set everything on the counter and handed them each a bottle before cracking one for herself. She moved her sunglasses to the top of her head. They all took silent swigs before glancing around at each other, none of them quite sure what to say. Franklin spoke first.

“So you really bust a dude's head open with your foot, or was that a _Trevorism_ ,” he asked. Michael shot him a look. Meadow just sighed and looked at her beer before nodding.

“Yeah, I...I did that,” she said before looking up at him quickly. “But I think it should be noted that I did so in self-defense.” She began pacing a little bit. “He was about to stab me and before that, he was getting ready to cut a lady's nose off, and that's when I showed up, so he kind of had it coming.” She took another sip of her beer before she stopped pacing, looking up to gauge the response.

Franklin was nodding. “That's fair,” he said. “Still, that's fuckin' cold. And you ain't exactly...” he started gesturing up and down her body before shrugging “...You know, you petite and shit.”

Meadow looked down at her feet before looking back up at Franklin. She cocked her head and tugged on her earlobe and saying, matter-of-factly, “Adrenaline's fuckin' crazy.”

Just then, Michael chimed in. “How did Trevor get involved,” he asked, eyeing her steadfastly. Meadow pursed her lips before she went to the counter, pulling some ground beef from a grocery bag.

“Um, well, Ron saw what happened and he...Trevor came over to my place offering to help,” she replied. She pulled out a bowl and put the meat in it before she set about seasoning it. She heard Michael snort before she turned to the sink to wash her hands.

“Just like that,” he said. Meadow wrung her hands off and turned back to the counter to blend the seasoning into the meat with her hands. Her back was to the two men, but not for long as Michael walked to the other side of the counter to look at her.

“Mmmhm,” Meadow replied tersely before she started forming the meat into patties and setting them aside. Michael looked past her at Franklin before returning his gaze to her.

“You're tellin' me that Trevor just waltzed over to your house and said 'Welcome to the neighborhood, got any bodies you need disposed of,'” Michael asked incredulously.

Meadow couldn't take anymore. If this guy knew Trevor, surely he knew that that very scenario was not beneath him. He was blatantly testing her and she could immediately sense why Trevor had lost his cool so quickly during their little altercation earlier. This man was a patience vampire. Meadow slammed her fist down into the bowl and looked up at Michael, who didn't seem startled at her outburst, but rather a little bit amused. She stared at him and held up a finger, her hand covered in the bloody pulp from the bowl.

“Look, man. I know we've only known each other for like, forty minutes, but in that forty minutes, all you've done is give me the side eye and use, like, innuendo and passive-aggressive _bullshit_ to drag answers out of me. So it would be really _fucking_ fantastic if you would just ask me whatever it is you want to ask instead of dancing around the topic just so you can watch me squirm. It's _sick_ ,” she spat.

In response, Michael raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips at her. Meadow couldn't tell if he was impressed or if he wanted to smack her, but neither of them had long to meditate on it before they heard a familiar chuckle coming from the door way.

“That's my girl, my little _spitfire_ ” Trevor said with an upward inflection as he strode into the room toward her, still chuckling with his mouth closed.

He placed his hands on either side of her waist and smelled her hair. Meadow's eyes were still fixed on Michael who was looking above her head. He and Trevor were obviously locked in a staring contest at that moment, and she sat frozen the way one might if they had just stumbled upon two bears about to fight over some carrion. Her raised hand was balled into a fist now. She could tell that the creepy way that Trevor was carrying himself was just masculine posturing brought on by all the testosterone in the room, but she was still uncomfortable. She grabbed a dish rag and wiped her hand off before grabbing the plate with the burgers and heading out the door. Food safety be damned.

Franklin followed her, closing the trailer door behind him. He grabbed her shoulder when they reached the porch.

“Yo, look, Meadow...I'm sorry 'bout all this,” he started. She turned toward him. She looked into his face, noticing suddenly how young and kind it was. “Michael, he ain't a bad dude. He's just...You know, he's just confused about what's been goin' on here.”

Meadow walked over to the edge of the porch to hand the plate of meat to a waiting Ron on the other side of the banister. “See, him and Trevor have history, as you probably know...”

Meadow shook her head. “I'd never even heard of Michael or you before today,” she said.

Franklin's eyes widened at this. “No shit,” he asked.

“No,” Meadow said striding over to the banister to lean on it. “I didn't even know he had a crew. He kind of struck me as a mangy lone wolf type of criminal, like me.”

Franklin joined her at the banister. “You in the life,” he asked after a minute.

Meadow sighed and shrugged. “I was. I've been pretty quiet the whole time I've been here, aside from, you know, crushing that guy's skull and getting kidnapped by gang members. But, yeah. I used to be.” Meadow cringed when she heard herself. Had some kind of grace period passed where she could now just shrug off shit like that? She looked over at Franklin and said “I'm not self-deluded, er, not _that_ self-deluded, I swear.”

Franklin, for his part, didn't seem to notice the gaffe. “What game? Bank jobs, high-end stores?”

“Hits,” she replied. The thought crossed her mind that she was, again, being too loquacious, but she knew that she was in good company as far as her past went, so she shrugged the thought away.

Franklin nodded. “Done it.” They sat quietly for a second before he continued. “So Trevor really never mentioned Michael to you?” She shook her head again. “Shit. I probably shouldn't be talkin' to you about this but, uh...Them two dudes know each other from back in the day. And Michael...Well, Michael faked his death to get away from Trevor.”

Meadow could feel how wide her eyes were as she turned to face Franklin, but she didn't have it in her to contain her shock.

“Me and Michael hooked up and pulled this big job and...That's when Trevor found us again...” Meadow just sat there gaping before a thought blinked into her head.

She pointed toward the trailer and leaned toward Franklin, whispering, “Is that the Michael from Trevor's tattoo?”

She had noticed the lettering in bed one night, but didn't bring it up because it was obviously a tribute piece for someone who had died and she didn't want to dampen the post-sex euphoria.

“That'd be the one. You didn't hear it from me though, alright?”

“Sure,” Meadow said absently. She was trying to wrap her head around how fucked up and convoluted Trevor and Michael's past had been. But it only took a minute for her head to start hurting at the realization that her brief history with Trevor hadn't been...uncomplicated. Yet again, her sense of self-awareness seemed to be taking a holiday.

“So, uh, you need help with anything,” Franklin said, interrupting her thoughts. It was a welcome interruption and Meadow pounced on it.

“Yeah,” Meadow said turning to Franklin.

She started back inside, Franklin following close behind, hoping to God that Trevor and Michael weren't in the throws of a round of fisticuffs by now.

 

 

The meal was quiet, thankfully. The fivesome ate outside, the conversation consisting only of people who were capable of getting along speaking to each other while everyone else took turns listening or ignoring. Trevor could tell that Meadow was pleased at the effect. She told him that she had seen it work many times before and that's why she didn't cancel the barbecue in light of Michael and Franklin's arrival. It was Naida's doctrine, she said, that food brought people together, or at least made it more difficult for people to argue, their mouths being full and all. But now everyone was full and Meadow and Franklin had washed and put away the dishes. Now all that was left to do was drink and watch things get interesting.

Trevor was still uneasy about Michael being here. He had woken up that day only looking forward to having Meadow back even though it was he who had insisted that she go to her nephew's Christening in the Great Chapparal. It was kind of nice being able to look forward to something. He hadn't had the feeling in a good long while, at least not since the U.D. job was in the seminal phase. This was better, though. It made him feel what he assumed was _normal_ , or as close as he could get to it, which still sicked him out a little bit, but it wasn't so bad when she was around, especially now that sex was on the table. _Fantastic, naughty, passionate, that-girl-is-wise-beyond-her-years-where-it-counts sex._

He hadn't wanted for Meadow to see how easily Michael grated him up and down, not before he figured out what the two of them were doing together. Sure, before it was fun because he just did it right back to him, even instigated it most of the time. But now he had her around and he wasn't as interested in pushing the buttons of someone who had done the most desperate thing possible, _second only to actually dying_ , to get away from him. His focus on the people in his life was divided now. It was especially infuriating to him that Michael always bitched about wanting Trevor out of his hair, but as soon as he had started to cut the cord a little bit, Michael the fickle troll had to show up at his doorstep to fuck with him.

Trevor sat on a lawn chair across across from Franklin and Meadow. A low fire burned in the hibachi in the center of the circle of lawn chairs. Franklin was regaling Meadow with the tale of his short-lived and largely futile foray into the paparazzo business. Meadow couldn't contain her giggle fits at Franklin's stories about finding America's sweetheart bent over patio furniture or the time he caught English royalty buying crack behind a bodega. (Indeed, she shared a similar disdain for celebrity culture with Trevor). It was nice to hear her laughing so much and it was nice to see her and Franklin getting along so famously, he thought to himself. Just when he was ready to cringe at letting such a quaint, _normal_ notion cross his mind, he saw Michael swoop into the lawn chair next to him. He cringed at that instead and sighed. Michael adjusted himself in his seat and leaned in toward Trevor.

“You know, I heard Meadow tell Franklin that they were born in the same year. That makes her twenty-six and therefore less than half the age of your last lover,” Michael mocked.

Trevor rubbed his temple and stared at the flames, suddenly imagining holding Michael over the fire by his feet. “Your point being?”

Michael shrugged. “Ah, no point, really, just...You're kind of all over the maturity map with your taste, Trevor. Most men have a type and _generally_ age makes it into that equation,” answered Michael sarcastically.

Trevor pondered this for a moment before responding. “Didn't Amanda catch you in bed with a stripper less than half your age, Mikey? Huh, wasn't that one of her _major_ grievances, ya fuckin' cretin?”

Both men were talking low, keeping one eye on Meadow and Franklin, obeying some unspoken covenant that they wouldn't ruin the young people's good time with their own bitterness.

Michael snorted. “Touché.”

“Ya know, I don't see what your fuckin' problem is, Michael. What the fuck did you expect to come all the way out here to find? That I was dead? Would that please you more than finding me enjoying the company of another human being for once, a human being I might add, that doesn't charge by the hour and act and then bound off into the night when my balls are empty?” Trevor winced at his own words, immediately realizing how pitiful he sounded. _Goddamn, he was really wearing his black heart on his sleeve these days._

“No,” replied Michael, sounding a little bit remorseful, which only served to piss Trevor off more. “Fuck man, excuse me for finding it a little weird that I don't hear a peep outta you for almost two months...I'm bound to get a little worried considering it's you we're talking about, you who hasn't given me a moment's fuckin' peace since you found me.”

“Well, if it's such a _bother_ to you, then why don't you take it and run with it, old friend? Fuckin' enjoy it while it lasts,” Trevor replied bitterly.

It was then that Michael decided to drop a bomb.

“Why were you calling Lester to ask about the FIB,” he asked pointedly and also a little loudly, it would seem, as Meadow and Franklin's conversation came to an abrupt standstill. Michael looked over at the two across the fire, apparently feeling free to raise his voice. “We just got done putting out that fire and now you wanna stoke another one!”

Trevor didn't let his rising irritation gradually taper upward. Instead, true to form, he took it to the limit immediately. He stood up and looked down at his friend.

“You don't know what the fuck you are talking about, Mikey! It has _jack_ and _shit_ to do with you,” he spat.

Franklin was sitting up straight in his seat now, bracing himself. Meadow was holding her legs to her chest, looking pensive.

Michael stood up and squared his shoulders. “Then fuckin' tell me,” he demanded.

Trevor looked at Meadow who was looking up at him wearing an inquisitive, if not nervous expression. Trevor looked away and sucked his teeth before looking back at her.

“Kitten,” he began, not knowing if he was soldering shut any kind of future with her, but knowing he was backed into a corner. “The other night, you mentioned an FIB agent that got killed at Del Perro Pier.”

Meadow lowered her head, looking utterly confused. “I didn't say anything about the Pier-”

“Shot on a fuckin' ferris wheel,” he yelled, but now he was looking at Michael. He turned back to Meadow. She looked scared. _We're back to that_ , he thought. “That was me, Kitten. I shot that fuckin' snake Steve Haines,” he said, pointing into his chest. He didn't say it with pride. Rather, he was heeding Michael's call to air his dirty deeds. Meadow was looking away, shaking her head, lost in confusion and disbelief by the looks of it. Trevor continued, “He did the same thing to Michael here that he did to you and Michael roped me and Franklin into it.”

He wanted for Michael to see that he wasn't special, to see that the woman that he was indicting for taking up with Trevor Philips had something in common with him. _Don't throw stones from glass fucking houses_.

Michael stood up. He glanced between Trevor and Meadow. “Wait a minute...You're tellin' me that this girl,” he started, pointing at Meadow, “was an agent for the FIB.”

“Indentured servant or patsy, rather. I wasn't an agent,” Meadow corrected him, still wearing a look of disbelief on her face, her eyes vacant. Michael turned to address Meadow.

“And you were working under Steve Haines?”

“He blackmailed me.”

Michael gave a humorless laugh in response. He paced an pondered for a moment before responding.

“What'd they have on you, Meadow?” he asked earnestly.

Meadow looked up at Trevor with eyes that went from blank to pleading in seconds, but Trevor didn't know what it was she wanted him to do and he had a feeling she didn't know either. She turned her gaze back to Michael.

“I...I killed some Merrywhether guys and then...” she started, closing her eyes and shaking her head as though she was trying to shake the memory away, “...I started killing people for a living...They found out and-”

 _“Jesus,”_ Michael shouted. He slid a hand down his face in exasperation.

Trevor's hands were at his sides, balled into fists, partly out of anger, partly because of how tense things had gotten. He looked at Meadow, who had stood up. She was staring at the ground pensively, rubbing the back of her neck. He was trying to read her face. He wanted to know if she hated him suddenly for getting her into this bullshit, if she would run for the hills to get away from these men who had forced her to dredge up the not-so-distant past that she had come here to get away from.

Only seventy two hours earlier, the night before she was set to go visit her family, they had been lying in bed. He was staring at her body, telling her how glad he was that she wasn't shy, that she was giving him the privilege of being next to her when she had no clothes on, though he had used decidedly saltier language than that. She then joked that with everything that he knew about who she was and all the things that she had done, letting him see her naked was almost compulsory. Just part and parcel of knowing her the way he did now.

Even though it was said in jest, Trevor had taken it to heart, because he knew that she was telling him that she trusted him in a roundabout way. And not under duress this time like she had the day she had stomped that guy. She meant it. Trevor didn't want Michael or anyone else to own any other part of her, not one more secret of hers without her wanting to divulge it. He wasn't a fan of secrets. Honesty was his default, but goddammit, if his Kitten needed to keep mum about some parts of her life, he would defend her ability and her right to do so. He decided to put a stop to this before Michael tried to drag anything else out of her. Without taking his eyes off of Meadow, he addressed Michael.

“I called Lester because I wanted him to make sure that Meadow wasn't in any danger from the FIB,” he said. His voice betrayed no anger, but rather a kind of defeat. “We got out clean, Michael, I just wanted to make sure she did, too. I didn't want her to have to...run again,” he said, shrugging.

Meadow looked up at him now. She had the slightest hint of moisture in her eye. Her expression was almost blank, but he could see that thing that danced behind her eyes. That merciful thing that made his heart jump in his chest and his hands relax.

He continued speaking now, still staring at her. His voice was soft. He felt like he was lost in a haze, thinking out loud. “Just think, man. Think of how many times we must have missed her by just a few minutes in those scrapyards and alleyways,” he clucked, shaking his head. He tried to summon a memory of walking out in the parking lot by the oil derricks, to remember if he had smelled that girl sweat and coconut and laundry soap smell that had demobilized him the first night they were together. If it had been there but, without the context that was her, that it had held no meaning to him. He continued. “How fucking _close_ we must have been. How those busy, inept little G-men fucks and the touch-and-go errands they sent us on sent us all over a city with millions of people and they had probably _just_ gotten done sending her into the fire before they sent us to almost certain death...fuck knows how many times.” He snorted, humorlessly. “You're a fucking moron if you don't think so, Mikey. And we missed her somehow...And then one day she shows up in _my_ dive of all places, just like that.”

He detected a little smile creeping onto Meadow's face, a strange, wry thing that she tried to suppress as the pieces came together for her. He basked in it for a minute before he turned back to Michael, who, along with Franklin, was still taking in the implications of his weird little soliloquy. “So maybe you can appreciate why I wanted to protect a fragile fucking thing like that, Mikey. Maybe you can see why it means something to me and leave it the fuck alone.”

There was a long pause. Michael looked at him peculiarly for a minute before he slowly nodded. “You got it,” he said quietly.

“Good...good,” replied Trevor as he studied his friend, satisfied that he meant it.

He stole one more glance at Meadow before he went back into the trailer.

 

 

Meadow walked into the trailer twenty minutes after Trevor did, having bid Michael and Franklin adieu for the evening. She wanted to give him some time to cool off. Herself, too. She leaned against the door for a minute. She thought about what he had said, about how their lives might have intersected earlier and it made her wonder what would have happened if they had met at another time in another place. She quickly realized, though, that she didn't want to let herself go there. As messy as everything was, as tense as it had been only a half an hour before, she was here now.

She wandered toward the bedroom and walked in. The bedside lamp was on. He sat on the edge of the bed, hunched over with his head in his hands.

“Tiger,” she said quietly.

He looked up, a little startled, almost like he had been nodding off. “Hey, baby...Mikey and Frank leave?”

“Yeah, they're getting rooms for the night.” It was late now. She walked toward him and stood in front of him. He looked up at her and put his hands on her waist. He didn't restrain himself for long before he encircled her hips with his arms and buried his face in her stomach, inhaling deeply. Meadow smiled down at him. “Are you okay,” she whispered.

He was quiet for a moment before he looked back up at her. “I am now...Christ, leave it to old friends to fuck up my plans. All I've wanted for the past three days is to be alone with you.”

Meadow let out a subdued laugh and rubbed his back. “Me too,” she replied.

She crawled into his lap, craving more contact and let him rest his head into her chest. He sighed.

“You smell so fucking good,” he growled. She tipped his chin up and looked into his eyes.

“All that stuff you said out there...”

“Yeah?” He had a sleepy look on his face. Maybe it was just wariness from the events of the day. Or of his entire life.

“Is that what you meant when you were talking about kismet?”

Trevor laid back and put his hands behind his head. “Yes. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, Kitten. You have turned me into one sappy motherfucker,” he deadpanned. She smiled down at him. He peered up at her, his slight smile fading, suddenly replaced by a faint look of concern. “So, what now?”

Meadow widened her eyes at him facetiously. “What, Trevor Philips needs someone to tell him what happens now? I thought you made all your own rules, babe.”

He smiled a crooked smile at her. “Yeah, now that you've made me break almost all of them, I gotta start over somewhere.”

Meadow considered this for a moment. She traced lines on his stomach with her finger. “Well, I have been gone for a few days...”

“Uh huh,” he replied, licking his lips, subtly. He took his hands out from behind his head and started rubbing her thighs.

“...And assuming that what you said was true, that we might have _just_ missed each other back in L.S....”

“Yeah...”

Meadow pulled her shirt over her head and smoldered down at Trevor. “...Then the way I figure, we've got a _lot_ of lost time to make up for, my sweet...Why not start there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course I had to end it with more sexy time. I opened Pandora's box, what can I say? I don't have any restraint. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll do my best to make the last chapter satisfying. It might be a little while before I get around to it, though. I've been neglecting my IRL responsibilities as it is. Let me know what you think. Much love ;)


	12. Notes on Camping Safety

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is the last chapter. I did my best with it. It was burning a hole in my brain and I've been aching for resolution, so here it is. It's pretty fluffy and also very short...I hope it doesn't disappoint.

“Don't get me wrong. Now, I love camping as much as the next guy and nothing would bring me greater joy than watching _Amanda's_ head explode when she laid eyes on who I've been sharing my bed with for the past six months. But if I know Michael, _and I do_ , we would get there and find out that they'd made reservations at some swanky-ass fuckin' resort with no intention of roughing it whatsoever,” Trevor said.

Meadow sat on the bar pretzel-style while Trevor sat at a bar stool in front of her with his arm around her backside while she threw darts over his head, taking turns with Old Smoky, who was whooping her at the game.

 _“Dammit,”_ she said as he made yet another bull's eye. Smoky whooped triumphantly. “Time out,” she said to Smoky, defeated. She addressed Trevor now, laying down her darts and propping herself up on one arm as she stroked the back of his head. They had been having such a nice day, she didn't want him getting all riled up over a stupid invitation to go camping. “It was a nice gesture, Trevor. He's trying to integrate you back into his life. He's making an effort, at least. Besides, Franklin would be there to regulate, too. I made sure of that before I accepted the invite.”

Trevor scoffed. “Mikey and I don't go on couple's camping trips together, Meads. That's not the kind of friendly activity that we're accustomed to. We go and stick up joints and then we go to strip clubs and stuff our ill-gotten gains into someone's g-string. That's what we're made of.”

Meadow laughed. “Well, you've already slowed down considerably, Tiger, maybe it's time you tried something new and exciting,” she said sarcastically. “Besides, you know I wouldn't let him trick you into setting foot in a _swanky resort._ There's no way we could clean up the carnage before the cops came.”

He bit the inside of her thigh in response, making her jump. She slapped him on the arm impulsively.

“Oh, yeah, baby. Make it hurt,” he growled.

Smoky grunted with a sour look on his face, not bothering to hide his disgust. Trevor turned to him. “Game's over old man. We all know you were going to win anyway.” Meadow shot him a look. “What? You're terrible at this,” he said defensively. He set some cash down on the bar and took her hand, pulling her down and leading her out the door by her hand.

The day had been an impromptu-type of affair. They'd rolled out of bed, and once Trevor had gotten his bearings, he announced to her that they were going for a drive. Meadow didn't immediately recognize that he had driven her to Cassidy Creek once they got there, and while she'd conceded that it was indeed the crown jewel of Blaine County as Trevor had once told her, she politely declined his request for “bouncy bounce” at the site where they had dumped their first and hopefully only body together. She hadn't completely lost her mind yet. Instead, they took in the scenery and skipped rocks upstream a ways before heading back into town to grab a drink at the Yellow Jack Inn.

They got into the truck now and headed for the airfield. They often found themselves there even when they had no intention of going anywhere. It was mostly secluded and being around the planes and helicopters made Trevor relax. They arrived shortly and began walking over to where the bi-plane was. It was out in the open instead of in the hangar. Trevor lifted Meadow up over his shoulder. She laughed and swatted him on the ass playfully before he set her on the wing. He climbed into the plane and flicked the radio on before hopping out of the console and walking out onto the wing, sitting next to Meadow. She turned and wrapped her legs around him, resting one across his lap. The sun was beginning to set, drenching the horizon with pretty pink clouds. There was a nice little breeze in the air. Trevor stroked Meadow's thigh and looked off into the distance.

“I guess we can _consider_ taking Michael up on the invitation, but I have some conditions,” he said firmly.

Meadow snickered. “Okay, what would those be?”

Trevor sighed and considered the question for a moment. “Well, first of all, we have to take some heavy artillery. We can't sleep in the woods without blowing some shit up first. That's just sacrilege.”

Meadow nodded. “You got it. We'll disrupt the wildlife and scare the shit out of your best friend's better half. What else?”

Trevor's mouth curled into a smile and Meadow knew him well enough to guess what he would say next. True to form, he didn't disappoint.

“Well, the artillery shells are libel to scare off the wildlife for a while, but they're bound to come back once night falls, and we don't need them creeping around our tent, getting into our stuff...”

“Yeah?” Meadow said cocking an eyebrow at him.

“So as soon as everyone turns in, we have to do our due diligence to exhaust every safety measure where the wildlife is concerned.”

“Right...”

“Soon as as everyone is cozy...We have to fuck like bunnies and release a lot of pheromones into the air and make a lot of sexy noises so the animals know that it's our rutting grounds and we are not to be disturbed,” he said, shrugging.

Meadow threw her head back and laughed. “Are you sure you don't have ulterior motives, like, giving Michael a coronary?”

Trevor shot her a faux-offended look. “I wouldn't dream of doing something like that, Kitten. I am looking out for everyone's safety. God knows the city folk won't know what to do out in the wild. If Michael drops dead of a heart attack while I'm getting laid, we'll just call it a bonus.”

Meadow smiled and shook her head at him, chuckling with her mouth closed. Even though he couldn't go long without making some kind of sexual reference, even though he was always making cavalier allusions to killing his best friend in the most creative and fucked up ways, this was the guy that she had chosen. Most people walking on this planet would tell her that she hadn't chosen well but it didn't matter.

He was gold to her, one of the best things that she had seized for herself in her life, and even though she knew in the back of her mind that she had chosen him, sometimes it didn't feel like a choice. She didn't like to think too much about whatever cosmic design might be hanging over the human race, directing every action, big or small, sacred or profane. But in between waking up next to him every day, being in his arms, laughing with him, calming him when he started to fly into one of his rages, (which had become more seldom), showering with him, eating with him, sleeping with him, she couldn't help but feel like it was more than chance that had brought them together. Something bigger than them, for ill or for good, had sent them crashing into each other's lives and she couldn't imagine it any other way now. She knew that he returned the feeling. They filled a need in each other that couldn't be put down in any other way. Nobody could say where they were going, but Meadow wasn't afraid. She had faith that this was right somehow. They sat quietly for a minute before Trevor spoke up again.

“I think it's about time that you met Ma. We oughta make a trip up north one of these days,” he said. Meadow let an enormous smile light up her face.

“You want me to meet your mom?”

He didn't meet her gaze, but she could tell that he was uncomfortable with the joy that that request brought her. He always got a little squirmy when she showed appreciation for his sensitive side. He shifted a little.

“Well, yeah. It's only natural that I would want the two most important women in my life to meet,” he said as if he was explaining it to a child. One of his lovely defense mechanisms, to be sure. “I was also going to say that you should go ahead and move the rest of your stuff into my place because there's no point in you keeping it at what has become a glorified closet, but if you're going to get all soft on me, maybe we should wait until your head is out of the clouds...”

Meadow scooched closer to him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, smiling into the side of his face. She kissed him on the neck.

“I would love to meet your mom.”

After a minute, he relaxed a little bit and nodded in response, breaking into a little smile. They sat like that for a moment. Suddenly, something caught Meadow's attention, a song on the radio. She listened for a moment before confirming to herself what it was. She leaned back and looked at Trevor.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hmm?”

“This song was playing the night we met in the bar, remember?” Trevor listened for a minute. He snorted.

“That's right...You were singing along to it-”

“Right before you came over and accused me of being a hipster that knew nothing about planes,” she deadpanned.

 _“Easy,_ kid,” he shot back defensively. “I wasn't wrong about the planes. _Now_ you know a little about planes since coming under my guidance, but back then...” he clucked.

“Pshh.”

“Besides...” he started.

“What?”

“You can't blame me for starting shit with the sweet, young thing that walked into my bar. That's my flirting style and back then I just wanted to get in your pants,” he said with a shrug. Meadow rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, so?”

He turned to her. “So, while I _still_ want to get into your pants and I will jump at the chance _every time_ , I had no way of knowing then that I was going to fall in love with that sweet, young thing,” he said softly.

He was looking into her eyes now. She smiled at him. They just looked at each other for a minute. He continued to stroke her thigh and leaned closer, still locking eyes with her. “I fucking love you, Kitten,” he said.

Her heart did a little dance in her chest at those words. Her inner cartographer had stirred inside and set about making another map. This time, though, it wasn't completely made up of sad memories and regrets. The longitude and latitude lines might have been a little skewed, the landmarks might have been unusual. It wasn't the cleanest or most comprehensive or even the most inviting in places. But at any given point on that map, she could be present, she could be serene, she could know herself, know this man, know the strange little life that they were forging together and that's where she could find a supreme happiness and peace that was all her own, that didn't exist for anyone's approval. It just existed for her. Trevor Philips was the keeper of that map, now.

“I love you, too, Tiger.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and thanks to those of you who gave me such kind words of encouragement. I hope you'll read the next one, too! It's already an iron in the fire. Another Trevor story, natch. Thanks again :)


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